Northern Ireland

Bill Clinton’s NI views led UK officials to brace for ‘turbulence’, papers reveal

Interesting look at UK/US relations and Northern Ireland.

Not a fan of Clinton. That said he played a fairly significant role in pressuring the peace agreement that would eventually come. It was one of the better things IMO that he accomplished during his presidency. To say I liked Obama somewhat better but IMO Clinton was better at getting the results that he wanted than Obama ever was. He certainly had his agenda and would twist arms and even deal across the aisle to get those results. For instance the Nafta would never have passed without the majority of the republican House coming on board. Most of the real resistance came from the democratic House.

For Northern Ireland he assigned retired Maine Senator George Mitchell to work with a Tory govt. and a hardline Protestant majority that had a history of never giving an inch on anything and the minority Catholic population which just burned with resentment. Adams I think wanted to do this---the loyalist and catholic paramilitary prisoners had pretty much had enough too. The loyalist prisoners actually had felt abandoned by their own politicians for quite some time. They also factored into getting an agreement.