Another day of great promise has ended in uncertainty. That new dawn of democratic politics by exclusively peaceful means failed to materialise again yesterday in Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, are embarrassed publicly and privately left to pick up the pieces. Half of the supposedly historic deal is announced and the quid pro quo is withheld. There is more cause for concern than hope, at the time of writing, about the way forward.
How could the carefully choreographed events of yesterday - where it was planned that one concessionary statement would follow another - have fallen asunder so spectacularly? After all of the broken negotiations and broken promises which have characterised five-and-a-half years of the Belfast Agreement, specifically on the issue of decommissioning, the very minimum that was expected was clarity. The president of Sinn Féin, Mr Adams, had to address the three questions which could not be answered conclusively last April. Will the IRA end all paramilitary activity? Will the IRA decommission all of its weapons? Is the war over? The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr David Trimble, had to provide a fail-safe guarantee that he would provide stability to the political institutions.
The answers to these questions had to be clear for all to see in words and deeds. To take up where we left off last April, there had to be clarity from the IRA, from Sinn Féin and from the UUP to bring about the necessary acts of finality to fully implement the Belfast Agreement in all of its aspects.
The emerging deal, up to the point that it was put on hold, did not contain that clarity. Reading between the lines with a diploma in deciphering peace process talk, Mr Trimble was satisfied that the war was over. There would be no use or threat of force for any political purpose. The IRA's strategies and actions would be consistent with the Agreement. But, neither Mr Trimble, nor anyone else, was satisfied the IRA was locked into a decommissioning process which would make parliamentary, rather than paramilitary, activity the universal leveller in Irish politics.
The two governments are exploring the means of giving Mr Trimble an inventory of the arms and explosives put beyond use by Gen John de Chastelain yesterday. But, they are well advised to stand back to look at the bigger picture for a day or two. This deal is not designed solely to give Mr Trimble's party a platform to fight the Assembly elections on November 26th. It is a deal of final acts, acts of completion, to fully implement the Belfast Agreement for all democrats, North and South, on this island. A way may be found to allow Mr Trimble to quantify the scale and scope of an IRA gesture up-front in the election campaign. But far more important than the third act of decommissioning, albeit more substantial than the second, is to get clarity on the "process" to put all arms beyond use for all time.