Despite reasons to be suspicious of Adams's speech, logic dictates it makes sense to see in the statement real potential for political movement, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
At the start of a crucial election campaign in the North people could be forgiven for viewing Gerry Adams's "address to the IRA" yesterday as cynical. Time will tell. But if this is an opportunistic exercise then the person who would suffer most severely is Gerry Adams.
He has asked the IRA leadership the hardest of questions - to quit the stage - and if he doesn't get the required response then it would seem Adams is out on a shaky limb.
Whatever about the IRA, it seems that Adams has finally arrived at that "fork in the road" previously mentioned by British prime minister Tony Blair, and that he has decided to keep to a strictly peaceful path, beckoning the IRA behind him to follow.
Adams in his speech yesterday left no room for himself to return along that road to that happier point of prevarication and ambiguity with which republicans are so comfortable. If the IRA does not follow, then what does it say for Gerry Adams's leadership of the broad republican movement?
Initial thoughts, nonetheless, must be that this is a shallow exercise designed to put Sinn Féin in the good books of the wider nationalist electorate after the self-inflicted damage caused by the murder of Robert McCartney, the alleged IRA robbery of the Northern Bank and the allegations of "Rafia" money laundering.
But, while always maintaining healthy suspicions, deeper reflection says that this appears bigger than that, much bigger potentially.
Adams, whom Minister for Justice Michael McDowell and many others have claimed is an IRA army council leader, asked the IRA to go away yesterday. Martin McGuinness, another alleged IRA army council member, was at his shoulder when he posed his question, so was Gerry Kelly, while the West Tyrone Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty, another senior republican, was over in London briefing journalists about how significant Adams's statement was.
The old gag about the Sinn Féin president looking in the mirror to find out how the IRA will respond inevitably springs to mind. You would expect at least he would receive a positive answer when the IRA reacts to the critical questions he asked the paramilitary organisation in Belfast yesterday afternoon. If he doesn't, then Adams and the rest of us are in serious trouble.
SDLP and unionist politicians unsurprisingly portrayed Adams's speech as hollow and self-serving, a ruse to beef up the prospects of Mitchel McLaughlin winning John Hume's old Foyle seat from SDLP leader Mark Durkan.
The governments were more positive, however, but guarded as well. They know this could be Adams selling them another pup but nonetheless were cautiously optimistic.
"Gerry Adams's appeal to the IRA is significant and has potential. However, ultimately this statement can only be judged on the basis of the IRA's actions on foot of it," said Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Added British prime minister Tony Blair's official spokesman, "This clearly is a significant and welcome statement by Gerry Adams. Obviously the key will be what the IRA does as a result, and it is on that that the final judgment will be made."
It's worth examining just how Adams posed that historic question to the IRA. He praised the IRA for its commitment to the "struggle" for a united Ireland and, critically, added: "That struggle can now be taken forward by other means. I say this with the authority of my office as president of Sinn Féin."
There is an alternative to IRA activity, he was saying, while placing the full weight of his authority as a republican leader behind it.
"The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally," he said. (In case there was any doubt about what he meant, Mr McGuinness on RTÉ yesterday said Adams was saying the way forward was by "purely political and democratic means".)
Mr Adams then put it to the IRA: "I want to use this occasion therefore to appeal to the leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann to fully embrace and accept this alternative. Can you take courageous initiatives which will achieve your aims by purely political and democratic activity?" There doesn't seem to be any ambiguity there about leaving violence behind.
Mr Adams gave the IRA time to respond. Therefore the answer may not come until after polling day on May 5th, which would again trigger concern that this is a stunt to build credibility in the face of the elections after so much was lost by the allegations of monumental IRA criminality.
But as Mr Adams said when the DUP tentatively opened up the possibility of power-sharing with Sinn Féin, once you head down that road you can never turn back. Mr Adams by this statement is moving in an unequivocally different direction to the IRA and expecting it to follow.
He is doing so unilaterally, so to speak. He is not doing so based on the choreographed deal that was available from the DUP and the governments in December but simply based on Gerry Adams dealing one-to-one with P O'Neill.
That deal obviously would be up for grabs later, but as Adams himself pointed out, achieving that deal will be a "battle a day", such is the current unionist antipathy and distrust of anything that is said or done by republicans.
If the answer from the IRA isn't perfect then surely Sinn Féin and elements of the IRA must go their separate ways. That need not necessarily mean a split. At the very least you would expect that most of the IRA would embark on the road less travelled by that particular organisation and say Yes to Adams.
It could mean some IRA members, as happened after the first IRA ceasefire in 1994, simply walking away from the organisation and some others joining dissident groups.
It could also mean that, as Mr Adams said yesterday, this really is a "defining moment" for the republican movement.
That depends on Mr Adams being genuine. There are many out there who, for good reason, won't believe him. That's understandable, but whether or not he is being duplicitous, surely the old cosy relationship between the IRA and Sinn Féin can never be the same again.
It makes sense to be suspicious of this statement. But logic says it also makes sense to see real potential here for political movement in the autumn or sometime thereafter.
A senior London source put it well. "Given recent events nobody can be surprised if people are cynical about this. But equally, if you look at this coldly, the view must be that what Gerry Adams said is significant."