The spectacle of unionist leaders almost apoplectic with rage virtually guarantees an easy passage for IRA initiatives in the republican heartlands. In the zero-sum politics of Northern Ireland, a simple and reversible calculation is applied by both sides: anything that angers "them" must, by definition, be good for "us".
Following the most recent IRA statement, unionists dutifully played the role assigned to them. They complained loudly and at length about the high-profile dismantling of obsolete security installations and about government plans to disband home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment in two years if republicans live up to their promises. With just a little imagination, unionists could so easily have turned both issues to their advantage, but victimhood proved more attractive.
This predictable, almost ritualistic, reaction would normally be enough to satisfy republicans. Not this time, though, for they had bigger targets in mind. Not content with just winding up the unionists, republicans - who are seldom lacking in imagination - set out to humiliate and undermine the Taoiseach.
In claiming to have a personal commitment from Bertie Ahern on speaking rights in the Dáil for Northern Ireland's MPs and MEPs, Gerry Adams deliberately raised suspicions of secret deals having been done in advance of the IRA statement. This led to questions being asked regarding the nature and, indeed, the purpose of a series of private meetings involving Adams and Ahern. By the time a Sinn Féin spokesman belatedly acknowledged that the Taoiseach was correct in his denials, the ground had been laid for the next, far more serious, assault on Bertie Ahern's integrity.
When Jim Monaghan of the "Colombia Three" suddenly popped up on RTÉ to announce that he and his colleagues had arrived back in Ireland, it not only reinforced suspicions of secret deals but brought to mind previous plans by the Government to release the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe.
People wondered if they had simply been replaced by the "Colombia Three" because of the level of public outrage at the idea of early release for the killers of a garda.
But, whatever the damage at home, it is in the sphere of international relations that the Taoiseach and the Government have been most severely compromised by the return of Jim Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley. Regardless of the fact that there is no extradition treaty between Colombia and Ireland, with the war on terrorism ongoing and in the resulting international climate there will be little in the way of sympathy or understanding for the Government's plight, particularly in Washington.
In simple terms, the Republic will be judged to have provided safe refuge for individuals fleeing justice after being convicted of training foreign terrorists. Likewise, the Colombian government's abysmal record on human rights will count for nothing.
Colombia is the USA's closest and most vociferously loyal ally in South America. That is all that really matters.
The issue is, of course, also of particular interest to President Bush and his administration, given that, over decades, tonnes of cocaine and other narcotics have been smuggled into the USA by the Farc narco-terrorists the fugitives were convicted of training. In the standard diplomatic language of understatement, the US State Department has said it is "watching the situation closely" and considers the three men to be "fugitives from justice".
Dispensing with such niceties, the chairman of the US International Relations Committee, Congressman Henry Hyde, has stated more bluntly: "The US takes this issue very seriously. We hope the Irish Government honours its agreements and carries out the Interpol warrant for these three Irishmen who are wanted on serious charges by the Colombian government after conviction for helping to facilitate the training of narco-terrorists in our own hemisphere."
And that is at the root of the problem: the Irish judiciary - for it is beyond the remit of the Government - cannot "honour its agreements" because no such agreements exist.
It is inconceivable that Bertie Ahern entered into secret agreements with Gerry Adams, either on speaking rights in the Dáil or on the return of the "Colombia Three". Leaving aside his personal integrity, the Taoiseach, of all people, would be aware that the first matter is only within the gift of the Dáil itself and that the second would lead directly to the situation he and his Government now find themselves in.
Neither is it conceivable that republican leaders did not know in advance that Jim Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley were about to return to Ireland.
They succeeded in doing exactly what they set out to do: undermine the Taoiseach's credibility at home and seriously embarrass the Irish Government abroad.
Never mind unionists; republicans now have their primary targets firmly in their sights.