Where we are now in the peace process, we have never been before, writes Mark Brennock.
During every crisis in the peace process in the past decade it has been customary for optimists to say we've been here before and everything will be all right in the end. But where we are now is somewhere we have not been before.
It is not just that we have recently seen the bitterest exchanges between the Government and Sinn Féin since the peace process began. Some of those engaged in these rhetorical flights must come under suspicion of over-acting: there was an element of Clint Eastwood about Mr Gerry Adams's "come on guys, arrest me" speech outside Leinster House on Thursday.
What is new is that we are in a phase of the peace process in which there appears to be no room for fudge any more. The Irish and British governments and all political parties - barring Sinn Féin of course - are demanding that the IRA's violent and criminal activities end before politics progresses any further.
Since mid-January, the Taoiseach, ably aided by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has led an unprecedented public onslaught on Sinn Féin and the IRA.
It consisted initially of the repeated unequivocal assertion that the IRA robbed the Northern Bank and that the Sinn Féin leadership knew about it beforehand. It became quickly focused on a simple but ambitious demand: that the IRA end all paramilitary and criminal activity and sign up to an unequivocal pledge to stay away from such behaviour in the future.
This new stance marks nothing less than a fundamental break with the tolerance of fudge and ambiguity, qualities deliberately deployed for 10 years to help the process along.
The governments and other optimists had always hoped the process that began with the 1994 IRA ceasefire would lead to Sinn Féin fully entering the political process, and its IRA associates permanently winding up violent and criminal activities.
Peace process supporters recognised that leading such dramatic change in a dangerous and heavily armed organisation was not easy.
So a period of creative ambiguity followed. The ceasefire broke down completely with the Canary Wharf bomb. When it was restored in 1997 it was far from perfect. Kneecappings and punishment shootings continued, alleged criminals were "exiled" from nationalist areas under threat of death, robberies and other fund raising activities continued.
But a blind eye, or at least a poorly sighted one, was deliberately turned to these activities while the political leaders wriggled their way around and over and under every blockage during the painfully slow political evolution. Sinn Féin steadily grew in electoral strength and found itself at the government table in Northern Ireland.
The problem was that Sinn Féin growth was not accompanied by an equally steady IRA decline. Gerry Adams's statement on the IRA in the early days of the process - "they haven't gone away, you know" - has been replaced by a growing concern that they have no plans to go away, you know.
Sinn Féin leaders say this is wrong, pointing to the IRA's pre-Christmas offer to dispose of all its weapons and enter a "new mode" in which its members would not "engage in any activity which might thereby endanger the new agreement". This, famously, fell short of the Government's demand that the IRA sign up to a form of words including a commitment "not to endanger anyone's personal rights and safety". But Sinn Féin leaders have claimed its offer showed it was indeed prepared to go away.
It was always the Government that was most indulgent of Sinn Féin and the IRA's activities on the side. Bertie Ahern's personal credibility with the British and US governments as a sure-footed reader of the peace process meant others followed his lead when he seemed willing to tolerate the double-life of republicans in the pursuit of the great prize.
The failure of the December talks was the second last straw. Sinn Féin was right to say the demand for photographs of decommissioning was a new demand inserted by the DUP. But they know by now that every time they fail to make a required move away from violence, the demands on them next time around are higher.
The Taoiseach's patience was just about gone when, for the third time, an almost completed historic deal evaporated as Sinn Féin and the IRA failed to come up with everything the governments and other parties required of them. Mr McDowell's skilful public elucidation of the "no criminality" requirement that had been put to the IRA, and its failure to sign up for it, was easily and widely understood.
And then came the Northern Bank raid, perfectly illustrating Mr McDowell's point. As the Taoiseach put it he, the trusting leader who had done everything to help Sinn Féin, was negotiating with Sinn Féin's leaders while those same people knew a major bank robbery was being planned. He wasn't going to take it any more.
In recent weeks, the Taoiseach and Mr Dermot Ahern's careful leaving open of the door to Sinn Féin has been contrasted with Mr McDowell's robust and unrelenting rhetorical confrontation of what he calls "the provisional movement".
There were indeed different emphases last month. But the Taoiseach and Mr McDowell are on the same message. Both now use the exact same phrase ("the ball is in their court") to say it is up to Sinn Féin to come up with proposals to convince them it is ending violence and criminality. Both say they oppose sanctions on Sinn Féin or any solution that excludes it.
It is not that one is hard and one soft, it's that the message has hard and soft elements.
It was the Minister for Justice who most recently restated the soft bit - Government's opposition to sanctions against Sinn Féin, and asked that party for proposals to bring it back into the centre of political discussion. The Taoiseach regularly restates the hard bit: there can be no progress until the violence and criminality are sorted out.
Nobody expects any serious political movement until after a British general election expected in May, and probably not until after the summer.
In the meantime, a British Irish Inter-governmental Council meeting on March 2nd will discuss various security, equality and human rights issues; Irish Ministers are expected to be seen more often in the North pursuing north-south co-operation issues; there will be continued highlighting of outstanding parts of the Belfast Agreement; and dialogue will continue between the Government and various Northern parties.
But the pressure on Sinn Féin and the IRA will continue.
The peace process goes on, but the Government has decided that "creative ambiguity" has outlived its usefulness.