The United States, Northern Ireland and the ‘War on Terror’: A Reply to Christopher P. Cunningham

Abstract

In his article ‘Northern Ireland and the “War on Terror”: Political Perceptions’ (Irish Political Studies, 24(3) (September 2009), pp. 285–302), Christopher P. Cunningham attempts to gauge the impact of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the peace process in Northern Ireland. Whilst his conclusions regarding the event's non‐effect on British policy are broadly correct, his assumption that UK support for the United States' ‘War on Terror’ led the US to refrain from contradicting British policy in Northern Ireland is not. By acknowledging the structural autonomy granted to US special envoys to Northern Ireland, this article demonstrates that disagreements between US and British officials were common throughout the post‐Agreement period. The article also shows that, pace Cunningham, British officials failed to prevent US Special Envoy Richard Haass from promoting policy in Northern Ireland with which they disagreed precisely because of the ‘War on Terror’. Therefore, this article will suggest that Cunningham's interpretive error could have been avoided by engaging a full literature review and perhaps employing a different methodological design for his study.