The Irish Republican Army has broken the logjam in the Northern Irish peace process. Last weekend, the group offered to put its vast stockpiles of weapons "completely and verifiably beyond use." That gesture will allow the suspended power-sharing agreement in the province to go forward. The implicit pledge to pursue change by the ballot, rather than the bullet, holds out promise of ending the bloody civil war that has ravaged Northern Ireland for decades.
Disarmament has always been the chief obstacle to peace in Northern Ireland. The vast arsenals held by paramilitaries on both sides of the sectarian divide are a direct threat to the rule of law in the province. For Catholics, and the IRA in particular, weapons were equalizers in the struggle against a political system tilted against them. For militants, disarmament was the equivalent of surrender, an act that was especially unthinkable since they had never been defeated.
Yet, Northern Ireland's Protestants -- at least those willing to negotiate -- had made the handing over of weapons a precondition for sharing power. Mr. George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator turned mediator, brokered a compromise between the two sides that implemented a step-by-step process of reciprocal concessions to win confidence and work toward the eventual decommissioning of weapons. Mr. David Trimble, leader of the Protestant Ulster Unionist Party, agreed, while demanding gestures from the IRA that would cover his flank.