Is peace at risk in Northern Ireland?

 

Pro-British loyalists have been rioting every day for a week, angry about post-Brexit issues.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought peace to Northern Ireland – but the issues that divided the region have not gone away.

And now, in the aftermath of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, the situation has worsened and threatens to derail that agreement.

How Brexit could create a crisis at the Irish border

Northern Ireland is part of the UK, but because of a special power-sharing agreement, it has an open border with Republic of Ireland. This was designed as a compromise that ended 30 years of conflict and violence in Northern Ireland between Nationalist and Unionist paramilitaries. Today, Brexit means that the UK needs to close its borders and the issue of the Irish border is one of the hardest things to negotiate with the EU. Closing this border could undermine the compromise that kept the peace for 20 years.

The Reality T.V. Host Who Believes He's Diplomat Goes To Singapore

Tomorrow Donald Trump will become the first Oval Office occupant to meet directly with the leader of North Korea.  He and Kim-Jong un will sit down and begin the process of reaching an equitable agreement between the two countries.  Donald Trump and Kim-Jong un will hold a private meeting without aids or advisers.  Given Trump's penchant for agreeing to a deal, announcing said deal followed by reigning on the agreement reached the question must be asked. How will North Korea react when he does just that? 

Negotiations such as these are fraught with potential misunderstanding and disagreement over just what is meant by a certain phrase or clause.  These types of agreements take years to hammer out not days. The Good Friday Agreement is a perfect example. It took years of difficult negotiation before that treaty was agreed to.  Donald Trump believes it will be a matter of hours or perhaps days. Given his short to nonresistant attention span how long will it take before he starts lashing out on twitter and reverting to calling Kim-Jong un little rocket man?

Donald Trump shouldn't be allowed to negotiate on the nation state level as he's wholly incapable of understanding the situation nor does he care to learn.  He'll be remembered for behaving like George W. Bush, when after meeting Vladimir Putin announced that after  looking into his eyes he knew he'd met a willing partner searching for solutions to the worlds problems. How wrong he was.