BUSY TODAY, back tomorrow, sorry. While-u-wait, read this analysis of implications of the car bomb by ETA yesterday. I don't agree with the last bit, though; it's true that some Basques see the Northern Ireland situation as a parallel, so the article is technically true. But it should have noted that the comparison doesn't hold water: in Northern Ireland there are two groups against each other, and therefore Blair caught in between, so to speak. That's not the case in the Basque country, because it's only one faction hitting against everybody else who disagrees, and law enforcement pursuing them (that's been generally so, except during the ominous administration of Socialist PM Felipe Gonzalez between 1982 and 1996, with the GAL death squads and all). So there's nothing to 'broker' between two sides.

Plus, I'm not sure these Basque radicals really see the implication of taking Northern Ireland as a model, because that would mean that their autonomy could be suspended any moment, as Blair did some time ago. Somehow I think they wouldn't be ready to take that specific possibility as an example, would they?