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William Whitelaw did not pretend that Operation Motorman was anything but an effort to buy some badly needed time. Such actions, he said, "are to provide the basic security upon which a political solution can be built." His policy of reconciliation, he emphasized, would continue. But by satisfying Protestant demands, Whitelaw ran the risk of once more alienating the entire Catholic community. With British troops as virtual occupation forces in the Catholic ghettos, the possibility of new flare-ups was all too apparent. One of the lessons of Ulster's bloody history is that Irish republicans and the British army cannot long remain at peace with one another.