On december 31st the usually slick Richard Haass, an American former diplomat, emerged from all-night negotiations in Belfast looking bleary-eyed. Northern Irish politics will do that to you. Despite months of discussions, seven successive position papers and some frantic last-minute transatlantic flights, an attempt to break a deadlock among the province's five main political parties had failed. In time, however, Mr Haass's efforts may well come to seem more successful than they do now. Northern Ireland's political leaders had invited Mr Haass to the province in July after clashes-both in the Northern Ireland Assembly and on the streets-over three thorny issues. How should violent crimes committed during the Troubles of the 1960s to the 1990s be investigated? Should the union flag fly from public buildings, and when? And what rules should govern the parades that celebrate nationalist and unionist history-and, often, serve to intimidate the other side? In recent months these cultural quarrels have jammed Northern Ireland's democracy.
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