By Niall O’Dowd

The Sheraton ballroom in Midtown Manhattan was packed with Sinn Fein supporters, many there to make the point that an entirely spurious U.S. fundraising ban on Adams was not going to deter them from supporting the party.

Adams succeeded in making an appearance anyway, albeit by satellite, and he undoubtedly got far more attention for his non-trip than if he had shown up on these shores.

Adams was barred from receiving a fundraising visa because the U.S. authorities wanted to press him to move on policing in Northern Ireland and accept the new police force there, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

It was the kind of daft move that we used to expect from administrations before the Clinton one which were clueless on the North. It was the crudest form of attempted persuasion possible and, as could be entirely expected, it did nothing except lose valuable influence for the U.S. administration on the issue of Northern Ireland.

If this is the usual foreign policy template, little wonder we are experiencing significant diplomatic difficulties around the world.

Surely U.S. special envoy on Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss must have known that such a move would have the counter productive impact of hardening the Sinn Fein position on policing, as any statement by Adams to the contrary would leave him wide open back home to the suggestion that he was a puppet for the Americans.

It was a surprising misstep by Reiss, who bears responsibility for Northern Irish policy and who had been impressive in that role up to this point.

The inherent contradiction between allowing Adams to come to America for fundraising purposes previously when the IRA had not disarmed, and now refusing that same privilege when they had, is glaringly evident. No doubt Reiss saw that too.

Was this a policy that was discussed as one of many options and then got out of control and was grabbed by some State Department hardliners, as some suspect? Or was there some fatal misunderstanding on the best way to work with and influence Sinn Fein?

If there is one lesson only from the past 10 years, it is that public coercion tactics against Sinn Fein demonstrably do not work.

Reiss would have been much better employed allowing Adams to visit the U.S. without any restrictions, and then sitting down for a private conversation on the issue of policing and hoping to influence him on that basis. Taking out the megaphone and blasting demands across the Atlantic was always bound to create far more problems than it solved.

Now we are faced with the fact that the Bush administration has suddenly far less influence over the Irish peace process than they did before this silly incident. One can only hope that the damage can be repaired and that there will be no permanent setbacks from this episode.

Sinn Fein needs and welcomes the American influence, but the Bush administration must learn that, in order for them to have that influence, they cannot commence megaphone diplomacy when quiet, backroom discussions are called for.

Will Sinn Fein get around to accepting policing? The answer is a definite yes, but it will happen only after other guarantees are met and the entire peace process moves forward in an all-embracing way.

The American attempt to short circuit that admittedly tiresome process was always doomed to failure.