Mr O'Sullivan fails to make the basic point that, whatever form an Irish public debt restructuring might take, it would at best be only a partial solution to the country's public finance problem.

For its own sake and for that of the euro's viability, Spain needs to learn from Ireland's sorry tale.

When markets are irrational, it's impossible to say what might set them off, and fear of disaster becomes a powerful excuse for policy makers to do whatever they choose.

The finance minister of Ireland announced a plan to ransom the hostage economy. Others should follow suit.

The Greek, Irish, Portuguese, and Spanish governments already have tenuous holds on power. A deepening in their economic crises could give rise to populist governments ready to dump the euro.

The economic recessions in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal will become deeper if the IMF and the EU don't recognize that the countries in the periphery suffer from solvency rather than liquidity problems--which are not amenable to correction by fiscal retrenchment alone in a fixed exchange rate system.

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is getting an appetite for political controversy.

Markets have begun to ask questions about Ireland's solvency, but European policymakers appear to be in the same sort of denial as were their Greek counterparts.