There is a bright side to the crisis

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Monty Python has much to answer for. Ever since it gave us the song, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, during the crucifixion scene in The Life of Brian, anyone offering optimism during times of crisis is apt to meet a wall of ironic mockery.

That is the risk I face now. Plainly there is plenty to feel nervous about. However, the news since 11 September has not been all bad. There is a case for optimism. The terrible spectacle of two aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center has given a number of world problems a much needed jolt out of deadlock, complacency and torpor.

The Irish peace process is the most obvious example. On 10 September the prospects looked bleak. The IRA would not disarm, and the Unionists were threatening to bring down the Northern Ireland executive in protest. Twenty-four hours later, American sympathy for any group with a terrorist tag was gone. Pressure on the IRA from across the Atlantic became irresistible. Within days the IRA reopened contact with General de Chastelain. Today, with part of the IRA arsenal now put beyond use, David Trimble is set to resume as First Minister. The peace process is back on track.

Peace has still to come to Gaza and the West Bank, not least because of the assassination of the Israeli culture minister and the reprisal raids. Yet in the days before that assassination, significant progress was being made, again because a shift in American policy. In order to stay friends with as much of the Muslim world as possible, the US at last backed the establishment of a full Palestinian state, and forced Ariel Sharon to accept this objective. An enduring settlement is now possible and, despite the awkward moments, was probably brought closer by Tony Blair's talks last week in Damascus, Jerusalem and Gaza.

A happier future also beckons for the United Nations. Until seven weeks ago, it had only a marginal role in tackling the world's big problems. The US was hundreds of millions of dollars in arrears with its payments, and mocked any suggestion that the UN should help to restore civic society to countries such as Afghanistan.

Events on 11 September changed all that. Congress immediately agreed to hand over the cash America owed. The US sought, and received, authority from the UN's Security Council, to strike back at the terrorists. Now, when Washington ponders Afghanistan after the Taliban, to whom does it look to glue the pieces back together? Why, the United Nations: better the world body, with its global legitimacy, than others who could be tagged as stooges of western imperialism.

In each of those three examples - Ireland, Palestine and the UN - the decisive change has taken place in the US, which has jettisoned policies even its friends disliked. There could be a fourth.

In his speech to Labour's conference, Tony Blair stressed the importance of every country signing the Kyoto Treaty on climate change. He did not say that the only important country to reject it is the US, but the target of his remarks was clear.

The US will not quickly or easily be brought onside. Its big pollution-generating companies have an appalling record of twisting arms in Washington; they also funded George W Bush's election campaign last year. But the mood is changing. Some industries, such as car manufacturers, have already edged away from the oil lobby. Since 11 September, the country's heavy dependence on cheap Saudi oil has started to provoke fresh thinking. Just as Congress has now learned to embrace the UN, it could come to acknowledge the benefits of joining the international campaign to prevent global warming.

It is not just the US where positive changes are visible. Russia and China have engaged more constructively in the struggle against terrorism than in any previous world crisis - both at the UN (where both are veto-wielding members of the Security Council) and in bilateral dealings with President Bush. The European Union has found a clearer focus to its quest for a common foreign policy. Here in Britain, a new, more realistic, internationalism is beginning to emerge, for example in our approach to aid, trade and Third World development.

One important long-term gain from of all this could be a fairer system of world trade. For years the West has been highly selective in turning rhetoric of free trade into action. It has maintained trade barriers against many imports from the Third World, especially food. Since 11 September, the recognition has grown that things must change - not because of altruism, which is always a fragile basis for action, but out of a hard-headed acknowledgement of what true self-interest means in an interdependent world.

This brings us to the heart of the case for optimism. The shock of seeing the World Trade Centers collapse has forced much of the developed world to rethink the way our planet functions. We now know what we should have known all along: that poverty, brutality and injustice in one part of the globe can affect us all. "Only connect", said EMForster in Howards End. At last, since 11 September, we have been connecting like mad.

Of course it all go wrong. The Taliban might prove as tough as the Viet Cong. Further terrorist attacks might send Americans back into an isolationist bunker. The Middle East might end up not at peace but consumed by even more chronic instability. Yet for the moment, we should not ignore the early signs of hope. "Realism" should not be the exclusive property of the pessimists.