Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Predictions

This wasn't intended to be link-to-old-posts day but that's what seems to have happened. So 2 things. First, with Ed Gillespie back in the White House as Dan Bartlett's successor (Counsellor to the President), Irish people need to brace themselves for an upsurge in strained analogies to Ireland being used to sell Bush's policies. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

And speaking of Bush and Ireland, one of many potential problems with the proposed Green-Fianna Fail coalition lurks in this provision --

It emerged last night that the Greens have accepted that Iraq-bound United States military flights will continue to use Shannon airport and that all new roads planned by the outgoing Government will go ahead.

A compromise on Shannon means that Dáil approval will be required before any non-United Nations mandated military flight will be allowed to land, but this will not interfere with the Americans' current use of the airport, since they now operate on a UN mandate.


But that mandate could be gone in December, especially with the Iraqi government showing further signs of implosion today. If the US loses the UN mandate, would the Greens vote against Dáil approval for further US flights, and would they leave a government that won such a vote despite their opposition?

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