After
a fairly quiet year of retirement, former President Bush was back in the news
this week after being asked to assist the Obama administration in Northern
Ireland. This intervention may have surprised many of the president's critics,
but not those of us who had worked with President Bush on this issue.
President
Bush was heavily involved in the details of the peace process, knowing not only
the major actors like John Hume, Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and of
course Gerry Adams, but also the relatively less powerful political leaders
from the other parties in the North.
In
the annual St. Patrick's Day ritual at the White House that came to be known as
the "stations of the cross," the president would meet in turn with
the leadership of each party as he made his way around the room. He had
mastered the alphabet soup of acronyms designating the myriad political
parties, and would discuss with each group its political prospects and major
challenges.
All
relatively minor stuff, critics might sniff. But this was more than just the
nuts-and-bolts responsibilities that come with the Oval Office. These moments
revealed the president's deep respect for the everyday political courage and
physical bravery of these men and women who risked their lives in the cause of
peace.
This
was most clearly demonstrated when I invited the McCartney family to the White
House for the St. Patrick's Day that immediately followed the brutal murder of
their brother, Robert, by IRA thugs outside a Belfast pub. The president was
deeply moved by their story and listened with compassion to the hardship they
had suffered and their quest for justice (a quest that sadly remains
unfulfilled to this day).
This
was the same president who would subsequently overrule his NSC staff in late
2006 when he believed that it would enhance the chances for peace if Gerry
Adams was allowed to visit the United States, a policy I supported because
Adams had fulfilled his promise to move his constituency to support the rule of
law. The decision also showed that Bush would reflexively favor no particular
religious, ethnic, or political group (even when it might have been
advantageous to do so for domestic political reasons). What mattered most was
advancing the cause of peace.
It
is therefore no surprise that the Obama administration has reached out to the
former president for his assistance. And the Bush's prompt assistance should
remind everyone that the Northern Ireland peace process has been a bipartisan
effort for decades, and the better for it.
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