With Tuesday's early-morning announcement that Assembly elections would take place in late November, we could almost be forgiven for thinking that, at last, the Good Friday agreement was going to get the kick-start it needs.
Surely after weeks of intense engagement between the Ulster Unionists, Sinn Féin and the two governments, nothing had been left to chance? But then again, and even though it went so well for a while, in light of past experience we should have known better.
The Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, began the carefully sequenced series of announcements with something of a reality check for the republican constituency. He spoke pointedly of pragmatic and painful decisions having to be taken in order to try and advance the republican position.
His words to unionists were much more comforting, though, and of far greater importance: "Sinn Féin's position is one of total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences. We are opposed to any use or threat of force for any political purpose."
In effect, the Sinn Féin leader was saying that, for him and his party at least, the war is over.
Within an hour the IRA released a statement, not only authorising a further act of decommissioning but also welcoming the Sinn Féin leader's speech and describing it as an accurate reflection of its own position.
By any interpretation it was clear that for the IRA too the war is over.
This time Adams wasn't left to try and lend interpretation to a convoluted set of IRA words; choreography had ensured that the IRA had only to endorse - or otherwise - Sinn Féin's republican commitment to using only peaceful and democratic means to further its ends.
By early afternoon, after a further IRA statement announcing a third batch of arms and munitions having been decommissioned, only two more pieces of the jigsaw remained to be put in place. We awaited only Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning report and David Trimble's announcement that the Ulster Unionist Party would resume government with Sinn Féin after the November poll.
One glance at the general's face when he mounted the podium to address the media was enough to tell us that, once again, something had gone wrong. His was more the demeanour of someone about to pass on news of a death rather than of a birth or new beginning.
The IRA had invoked the decommissioning confidentiality rule and, in so doing, had brought about the demise of this latest initiative. Everyone clearly understood that unionism, in its entirety, needed itemised detail on decommissioning if it was to endorse the reinstatement of the executive. Worse still, it had been led to believe that this time de Chastelain would provide it.
Irrational as it may seem - and despite the "war is over" statements from Sinn Féin and the IRA - the unionist electorate would feel conned.
David Trimble and his colleagues had no option but, as he described it, to "put the sequence on hold" in the hope that more details of the amount decommissioned would be made available - he would have been destroyed otherwise.
As it was already, his enemies within unionism could hardly contain their delight as they roundly condemned him for being so foolish as to trust republicans.
Despite this undermining of his position, Trimble and his team must be eternally grateful that they had refused to commit themselves before Gen de Chastelain had reported. If they had gone earlier in the sequence, the damage would be well nigh irreparable.
So what went wrong?
It's pretty obvious that the IRA lost its nerve. It and the Sinn Féin leadership were well aware that David Trimble needed much more clarity than before on acts of decommissioning if he was to have any chance of taking his party and the unionist electorate with him.
He must have been led to believe this would be provided, or he never would have gone along with Tuesday's initiative. Indeed Martin McGuinness, in a recent BBC interview, said he was aware of unionist needs on the decommissioning issue and felt these could be dealt with to their satisfaction.
The IRA must have gambled on doing just enough to satisfy moderate nationalist opinion, and hopefully the two governments, while at the same time causing as little internal upset.
Selling decommissioning in largely abstract form to the volunteers has probably been difficult enough for them without the added problems that an itemised listing by Gen de Chastelain would bring.
They further gambled on the Ulster Unionists being caught up and swept along by the momentum. They miscalculated badly.
Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and Gen de Chastelain all expected more transparency. The IRA, by failing to deliver on widely held and clear understandings, let them all down.
Releasing de Chastelain from his confidentiality agreement is the only way it can hope to make amends. Either that or it has deliberately set out to destroy pro-agreement unionism - and might just have succeeded.