If the impasse on decommissioning leads to the suspension of the institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement, it is clear that it will be in spite of the most extraordinary endeavours by political figures, civil servants and negotiators over the past week. The term "shuttle diplomacy" has taken on new overtones of urgency and intensity over recent days with meetings between ministers, negotiators and those speaking on behalf of the armed wing of the republican movement.
At this writing, the Secretary of State, Mr Peter Mandelson, is poised to execute the legislation in the House of Commons which can suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly and the power-sharing executive. But the air is rife with reports of a further statement from the IRA, perhaps another initiative involving Gen de Chastelain and suggestions of an understanding with the IRA which has been considered by the two governments. Today and tonight may see the denouement of any such moves.
It is worth repeating what the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, made clear some days ago. What is required of the IRA now is not immediate "product" as the term has come to be used, but clarity and certainty of intentions. Until this week, successive IRA statements had declared bluntly that there would be no decommissioning, ever. It has refused to state that its war is over for good. The organisation let it be known that it does not consider itself bound by what is agreed with Sinn Fein. And Sinn Fein has insisted that all it is obliged to do is to use its "influence" to seek to secure decommissioning.
There can be no place in government for the republican movement's political wing in such conditions. They cannot have it both ways indefinitely. Mr David Trimble and the Ulster Unionists took the bold step of going into the executive - for a limited time - on the basis that republicans recognised this and would act upon it. It is fatuous for Sinn Fein spokesmen to speak now of a unionist-imposed deadline. Mr Trimble has taken a stand which must commend itself to all who are committed to genuinely democratic principles. He has set down the ne plus ultra line for the Provisionals in their unwillingness, to date, to choose between the Armalite and the ballot box.
It may now be the case, as the suspension of the institutions looms, that the IRA is willing to give the clarity of intention which Mr Ahern - and Mr Mandelson - have spoken of. It is a truism that weapons can be replaced, that devastating explosives can be assembled from everyday farmyard chemicals, that what is fundamentally important is that mindsets which are committed to violence be decommissioned. Sinn Fein's political unacceptability derives more from the unwillingness of its IRA partners unambiguously to renounce violence than from the insistence that it should not surrender its materiel.
There will be a ready welcome for the republican family within the full democratic process when it confirms that it is willing to enter it completely and without reserving the right to revert to violence. If such an indication is forthcoming now, it would be folly to allow the suspension of the institutions to proceed. If not, Mr Mandelson must do as he has indicated at Westminster before this day ends. Any hope must therefore rest upon the ability and willingness of the IRA to deliver what it knows is required.