Ulster Unionism's preparedness to put the brakes on the Northern process was underestimated, writes Steven King
The Taoiseach was right about one thing: the situation in Northern Ireland in the absence of a conclusive deal between the main protagonists is very messy indeed. Those of us - and there are hundreds of us - who have attempted to square circles for the sake of a just peace are entitled to use stronger language in private.
On Tuesday afternoon, the expletives came thick and fast from the lips of normally genteel UUP candidates as they watched Gen John de Chastelain's shambolic press conference at Hillsborough Castle. One less genteel (but very senior) unionist asked, tongue in cheek, if there were any bullets left from 1912 that could be decommissioned to the general. It was the only light relief on an otherwise uniformly depressing afternoon.
If there was ever an occasion when an official could be accused of sexing down a dossier, we witnessed it on Tuesday. No matter how profound the significance of the words uttered by Gerry Adams - and they were indeed profound - it was always the act of decommissioning that would make or break the deal in Unionistland. Candidates never wanted to parse turgid republican prose on the doorsteps. They wanted to be able to say the world was a safer place for Ulster Unionism's efforts and be reasonably confident the mainstream unionist voter would not contradict them.
At the end of the film Longtime Companion, about the onset of AIDS on Fire Island in the 1980s, all the victims return from the dead as the survivors imagine a world where there is a cure. One compares that day to the end of the second World War. Sadly, it is a dream scene. Anyone who believed the end of the Provisional IRA's dirty little war would be like that was similarly dreaming. Nevertheless, is it too much to ask how much of the battlefield has been cleared up and when the task will be completed?
The truth is that whether or not Gen de Chastelain can - or, more presciently, will - give details of what he has witnessed and how close his task is to completion, republicans are their own worst enemies. Even in negotiations in which a degree of mutual dependence has built up, the leaders of Sinn Féin tragi-comically insist that they cannot speak for the IRA and can only pass messages to them. Given the nature of the Sinn Féin-IRA relationship - two sides of the same coin as the Taoiseach once put it - there can be no doubt whatsoever that the IRA got the message from unionism as to what was required if the sequence was to flow smoothly. The Sinn Féin leadership, therefore, has no right to be annoyed that the sequence was halted. Now republicans, no matter how much they sought to downplay the import of Gerry Adams's words, have committed the IRA to the Good Friday agreement and undertaken their biggest act of decommissioning yet with nothing to show for their efforts. This is not the result of some supreme Machiavellianism on Ulster Unionism's part but due to republicans themselves trying to be too Machiavellian for their own good.
They knew the act of decommissioning would leave unionists feeling unsatisfied - that is why they briefed that there was nothing new in the Adams speech - but they underestimated Ulster Unionism's preparedness to put the brakes on even if that incurred some transitory opprobrium. It can be compared to republicanism's disbelief when the Assembly was first suspended, despite the institutions themselves working tolerably, because they failed to reciprocate by making a start to decommissioning.
Perhaps, having secured a British commitment to an election date, republicans decided they did not need to go the extra mile and provide or allow greater transparency with respect to the decommissioning act. If that is so, it raises the question why the Department of Foreign Affairs became a cheerleader for an election which, as things stand, will result in a stillborn Assembly. Republicans can have their election but, as they have learned time and again, they cannot force unionists to share power with them. Meanwhile, Assembly or no Assembly, pro-agreement unionism still has a story to tell. Republicans might have convinced themselves that a local parliament is a sine qua non for the party that governed Northern Ireland for 51 years, but they are wrong. An inclusive devolved Assembly, next time with a sanctions body to police it, is still the UUP's overwhelming preference - but not so long as republicans show they cannot be fully trusted.
Pro-agreement unionism might not be able to look forward with any confidence to a return to devolution but it can record progress nonetheless. Recall the IRA statement immediately following the agreement in April 1998: "A durable peace settlement demands the end of British rule in Ireland this document [the agreement\] clearly falls short of presenting a solid basis for a lasting settlement there will be no decommissioning by the IRA."
Five years and two acts of decommissioning later, last April, the IRA fell short of answering the challenge laid down by the Prime Minister in Belfast following the suspension of the Assembly. The IRA's activities would only be consistent with its "resolve" to see the complete and final closure of the conflict, which might have been on the basis of the agreement and might have been on the basis of Irish unity. Furthermore, only after full implementation of the agreement would arms be set aside definitively.
In an accompanying speech made at Stormont, Gerry Adams had described the "substance" of the agreement as about "fundamental and deep-rooted change - including constitutional and institutional change", a phrase designed to hint at the inevitability of Irish unity.
On Tuesday, the conditionality was gone. Adams's IRA-endorsed speech talked about "full and final closure of the conflict" being provided by mere implementation of the Belfast Agreement, an agreement which on its first page describes the constitutional status quo as legitimate. A united Ireland has been reduced to an aspiration. Now the Republican movement - Sinn Féin and the IRA - envisages republicans and unionists pursuing their objectives peacefully "as equals".
For all this progress, there is a sour taste in unionists' mouths, as there must be in republicans'. Republicans want a unionist commitment to the institutions. Unionists want clarity on decommissioning. Around these needs an 11th-hour concord can be struck. For all the current bitterness, it is in process's interests that it is struck - and struck soon.
Dr Steven King is political adviser to the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble