In February 1996 I quoted in this newspaper a remark made by a foreign diplomat posted to Dublin, a man with some experience of dealing with armed insurgents in his own country. "Never cheat when you're dealing with terrorists," he said; "they don't understand it."
The comment was made following the breakdown of the first IRA ceasefire. Most people now attribute the Canary Wharf bomb to John Major's failure to engage in talks with Sinn Fein and, in particular, to his decision to "bin" the report of George Mitchell's International Body on Decommissioning.
We've come a long way since then. The Belfast Agreement is in place. Progress has been made on a number of important issues. David Trimble is to be seen having a quiet chat with Gerry Adams. Martin McGuinness is described by members of the Ulster Unionist Party as "a good listener". It seems a long time since anyone described the Sinn Fein leader and his colleagues as terrorists. Yet the decommissioning debate goes on and on. The importance of the issue is evidence of the deep mistrust which still poisons the peace process. Last week's joint statement by Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern attempted another fudge.
Decommissioning is not "a precondition" but "an obligation". Some arms must "be put beyond use on a voluntary basis" as part of an act of reconciliation.
Well-meaning, clever, but not clever enough. This is not part of the agreement to which all the parties signed up just over a year ago. Like everyone else who is anxiously watching this present crisis, I have read and reread the text. In paragraph one of the relevant section, all the participants accept "that the resolution of the decommissioning issue is an indispensable part of the process of negotiation". All parties also pledge themselves to use their best offices "to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons within two years".
It has been argued - I've urged the point several times myself - that the text of the agreement favours Sinn Fein's interpretation that there is no precondition on decommissioning but that the spirit of political accord would be well served by some gesture on arms. Sinn Fein has always said that it is not within its power to deliver the IRA on this issue. The guns may be silent but the grassroots are not for turning on an issue which seems to them to smack of surrender.
The reaction of the Sinn Fein leadership to last week's Hillsborough statement has been relatively restrained. It seems clear that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are desperate to find a way out of this crisis.
On Sunday the Sinn Fein leader, giving the Easter commemoration address at Glasnevin, said: "I have assured David Trimble that I will do my best to find a way out of the present impasse" - a notable statement given the day, the setting and the audience. But Mr Adams also gave clear warning that "the Belfast Agreement is in crisis".
Brian Keenan, speaking in Monaghan, said: "They either honour the Good Friday agreement or the Good Friday agreement falls . . . We have been here before. We have been on our own before and, if we have to be on our own again, we will be on our own again." Ourselves alone and in no mood for compromise.
On Good Friday last year, Sinn Fein, like all the other parties, signed up to a complex deal. Great changes were demanded from all sides. The Government agreed to changes in the Constitution. David Trimble claimed that the Belfast Agreement had secured the Union. In exchange, Sinn Fein would have the opportunity to pursue its objective of a united Ireland by democratic means and on a level playing field.
Last week's joint statement emphasised the progress that has been made on the setting up of an assembly, the establishment of cross-Border bodies, a human-rights commission, the Patten Review Body on policing and so on. Now, once again, all this is threatened by the decommissioning issue.
The two governments bear a large responsibility for allowing this to happen. Soon after the Belfast Agreement was signed, Tony Blair sent a letter to David Trimble pledging that there would be movement on the question of weapons. It was argued that this was necessary to win unionist support in May's referendum. This meant that when the two communities went to the polls, they voted for different deals. Nationalists voted for the agreement and nothing else, but unionists voted for the agreement plus Tony Blair's letter.
From the beginning, republicans suspected that the British were intent on renegotiating the deal. There were threats of a split. But Sinn Fein was able to point to Dublin's assurances that there would be no going back on the text of the accord. Now, Bertie Ahern has dramatically exacerbated the suspicions at the republican grassroots by, in effect, accepting the unionist argument on decommissioning. "Bertie abandoned us" is a comment one has heard, sometimes in much stronger language, from Sinn Fein sources.
What can the two governments do now to restore the republican movement's faith in the peace process, while at the same time retaining the unionists' wobbly confidence. One suggestion is that the IRA could declare that the war is over and accept the Good Friday agreement, including its objectives on decommissioning. It is hard to see this happening in the present climate.
Denis Bradley, the former priest from Derry who acted as an intermediary between the IRA and the British government for many years, sees some hope of finding a way forward through the proposal for a joint act of reconciliation. Mr Bradley lays great emphasis on the fact that there must be no question of allowing any gesture on weapons by the IRA to be interpreted as an act of surrender. But a day of reconciliation, if designed to be both all-embracing and powerful, might give all the parties to the conflict an opportunity to rise above the bitterness of the past.
It would need to take place throughout these islands and would put an onus on all the participants - the two governments as well as political and church leaders in Northern Ireland - to recognise publicly that we share responsibility for all that has happened and must now seek mutual forgiveness.
There has to be a way out of this crisis. We keep saying that "nobody wants to go back" but we should be in no doubt that a reversion to violence is possible.
The tragic scenes of human suffering from the Balkans, unfolding each night on our television screens, provide a warning of what can happen when we fail to forge an escape from the nightmare of history.