In Ireland, no war is still good news

As London, Dublin and Belfast prepare to welcome President Clinton, are we on the edge not of Irish peace, but of a return to violence? Republicanism is sending out all the distress signals it can muster. There have been deeply ominous editorials in IRA-sympathising newspapers. Sinn Fein leaders have been saying their obsequies over the grave of the peace process, accusing London of killing it off. MI5 and the Gardai seem to agree that republican terrorists are ready for a return to business.

So the message being sent to the politicians could hardly be clearer. But this is a message that changes in mid-air and arrives giving the opposite impression to the one intended.

The more that resting terrorists warn London to give up the idea of decommissioning arms before talks ''or else'', the more British ministers and Unionists feel confirmed in their belief that decommissioning matters. The sound of safety-catches unclicking merely emphasises the point and republican warnings intended to get rid of the arms issue have the effect of dragging it to the forefront of Unionist and British minds.

This is compounded by what could be called the passive warfare fallacy, the implication from Sinn Fein that violence could somehow ''happen'' again, without anyone willing it - as if Belfast was simply a violent place, in the same way it's a rainy place; as if violence was part of the Irish fate, unconnected with the chosen behaviour of free people.

Yet since the loyalist killers have made it clear that they will not be the first, violence can only restart if the IRA, or other republicans, take a decision to kill people. Then do so. They have to say to their own community (as well as the Americans and public opinion in the South), something so bad has happened that it is worth leaving these 15 months of peace and investment and blowing holes in people's heads; that the right thing to do is to assemble little clusters of electrical wiring and gunk in order to rip fathers, mothers, children, brothers to pieces.

This time, History cannot be so easily blamed. The long decades of Protestant ascendancy, bigotry and discrimination may be the underlying cause of the problem. But they cannot, by definition, be the trigger for renewed terrorism just now. All that there is to blame is an absence of political talks - bad enough, but not a reason for murder. Not when Catholic people and Protestant people are living together, making money, travelling across the border almost unthinkingly, preparing for another safe Christmas.

So we should not underestimate the political difficulties of restarting violence. It might start, given the genuine anger felt by republicans about the lack of movement from London, by IRA bombing on the mainland, perhaps targeting politicians or commercial targets, rather than going for police or Unionists at home.

But you cannot control or sanitise political violence. Green tit would be answered by Orange tat. Soon the blockades and the armoured cars and the pub shootings would be back. And someone would have had to take responsibility for pulling the first trigger. There would be no more red carpets or furtive handshakes in Washington.

All of which said, it does seem that IRA patience may have run out. Whereas, even a month ago, it seemed reasonable to assume that the ceasefire would carry on, now it seems prudent to assume that it may not. If the Clinton visit passes and no breakthrough occurs, and then the next putative London- Dublin summit is postponed again, it wouldn't be surprising to find a car bomb going off in the City of London.

Not surprising - but not inevitable either. The strange thing is that the two governments are not very far apart at all. They both agree on the twin-track formula - talks about talks going on between the ministers and the local parties while at the same time the international commission is discussing disarmament.

And the way London tells it, Dublin seems close to agreeing key British demands. First, the commission's job must be to investigate and eventually implement the ''how'' of giving up arms, not the question of whether it is necessary. Second, the political talks should include consideration of the Unionist proposal for a time-limited but directly elected constituent assembly in Northern Ireland, to discuss all issues.

This is sensitive in Dublin because it could be used as a way of internalising the politics of the North. Yet it has huge advantages. It would allow the Unionists and Sinn Fein to meet, face to face, without the decommissioning question necessarily having been resolved. David Trimble, the new UUP leader, has indicated that he would feel obliged to meet anyone elected to such an assembly.

One of the great problems with the Irish peace process is that, unlike in the Middle East or South Africa, the real antagonists have been talking by proxy, through governments which have, at best, lukewarm feelings for and partial understanding of ''their'' Unionists or ''their'' republicans. These communities have fought one another but have rarely talked with one another. Until they do, however many summits there are of circumambient prime ministers, taoiseachs and presidents, there can be no peace.

And it is just possible to imagine it happening. The American-led disarmament commission would be slowly taking evidence, while the parties agreed to hold elections for a constituent assembly. These elections would occur and then, despite the lack of progress on decommissioning, Adams would have his chance to explain to Trimble why they should try to talk anyway. Neither republicans nor Unionists would have lost face. That City bomb wouldn't have gone off.

It might be said that there would still be no ultimate resolution, because the two communities want mutually exclusive things, and always will. There would be more talking, but no real progress. It would be merely the postponement of the inevitable failure.

Quite true; and there are whole hooded regiments of told-you-so logicians on both sides, who proved long ago that Northern Ireland must always be a place of sudden death in small lanes and corner bars. They knew it was pointless all along, this peace process, this diplomatic blather, this tortuous, weary search for impossible compromise. It was always going to end in an angry breakdown. And now, despite President Clinton, despite the Christmas tree and the Belfast lights, the breakdown is looming.

What shall we say to these wise men, clutching their gifts of cynicism, weariness and bile? Only this. Had there been no ceasefire, no search for compromise, I calculate that about 100 people now living - young, old, soldiers, carpenters, nurses, unemployed - would be dead. Many more people now walking around, drinking, shopping, working, loving, with arms, legs and whole faces would no longer possess these advantages. If that is what blather has done, blather on.

Logically, once the real talks start, there can be no compromise. Logically, the peace process should have collapsed long since. But every day in Northern Ireland with no political killing is another good day won. Failure postponed is success.