Like almost everything that involves the IRA, there is an ambiguity about this week's setback to the peace process. On the one hand the delay in actual implementation could merely reflect internal difficulties within the IRA, forcing the leadership to move very gradually towards the completion of the process of disarmament.
In the past I have been inclined to believe this factor underlay most of the delay in carrying out decommissioning, but this time I am less inclined to accept this explanation. For, from the IRA's point of view, the key decision was that announced earlier this week and accepted by Gen de Chastelain, the unambiguous commitment to put arms beyond use.
With that key decision taken, the timing of its implementation is essentially tactical, and it seems most unlikely that, if it had wanted to do so, the army council would have had any difficulty in starting the process at once.
The other and I think more likely, explanation for the delay in implementation is that it has been a ploy to trap the UUP into what is in effect a rejection at this stage of the joint government plan for a final settlement. By making the commitment to put its arms beyond use the IRA can avoid blame for the collapse, or more likely suspension, of the power-sharing administration.
And, by postponing action on the matter, it could also ensure that David Trimble would find it impossible at this point to go back into government with Sinn Fein - and would thus incur the blame for the breakdown.
However, I do not think this tactic was simply designed maliciously to put the UUP on the spot. No doubt the dilemma thus faced by the UUP will give pleasure to many in Sinn Fein, but the IRA does not play games for the amusement of the Sinn Fein membership.
Everything it does - indeed, everything it has done since the peace process began eight years ago - has been most carefully calculated by its strategists, whose political skills have consistently enabled it to get the better of its opponents.
No, Sinn Fein/IRA knows that, in the situation into which David Trimble has been backed by his anti-agreement rivals, his unavoidable negative reaction to this delaying tactic must have one or other of two consequences, from either of which it might calculate it would gain.
The least likely consequence was the one that Gerry Adams yesterday demanded - the calling of an election. Neither government was likely to view that prospect with enthusiasm for, in such an election, Sinn Fein and the DUP would both be likely to gain seats - in Sinn Fein's case possibly enough seats to make it the largest nationalist party, which would then enable it to claim the deputy first ministership in a future administration.
It was thus almost inevitable that the British Government's reaction to this week's events would instead be to suspend the power-sharing process, and they have now chosen the option of a one-day suspension that leaves another six-week window for further negotiation.
Despite their objections to suspension Sinn Fein/IRA may well believe that such a development could benefit them in the longer run for before any eventual post-suspension Assembly meeting to choose a new First Minister and Deputy First Minister is held the defection of one or more UUP Assemblymen could lead to David Trimble not being re-elected to his present post.
And that would open the way for the nomination of a new UUP candidate, one more capable of rallying the support of a larger number of Unionist Assembly members.
It might seem strange, on the face of it, for Sinn Fein/IRA to be prepared to precipitate what would appear to be a shift to the right within the unionist camp. But, if their negotiators have concluded that David Trimble has lost the capacity to deliver a coherent UUP vote, this could in fact be a logical move for them. For, in situations like this, the more extreme leader, capable of bringing with him dissidents as well as moderates, is often the one who can best do a deal with the other side that will stick.
As Sinn Fein now has the authority of the IRA to play the trump card of a total elimination of its weapons, that party has got itself into a position to offer a new UUP leader a deal that he might be able to sell, even to his hard-line supporters. And, by the time such a deal became a possibility, thorny issues such as policing might have become a fait accompli that unionists would no longer be under such pressure to challenge.
(Incidentally, a puzzling feature of recent developments that seems to have evoked little or no media comment has been the failure of the British government to publish details of its further policing reforms. While this postponement may be thought likely to help damp down unionist opposition to the governments' proposals, it clearly also made it most unlikely that the IRA would initiate action to put its weapons beyond use this week. I wonder what lay behind this?)
In these new circumstances, what new UUP leader would be likely to emerge? Jeffrey Donaldson has skilfully positioned himself to challenge for this post. He may not be popular with a substantial section of the UUP, but the alternative "anti-agreement" front-runner, David Burnside, might be even less acceptable.
Donaldson was a participant in the most recent talks in England that preceded last week's joint government document. Sinn Fein will have been able to take his measure on that occasion, and if, as is rumoured, they were impressed with his performance, that would have confirmed them in the pursuit of a strategy along the lines outlined above.
Of course, all this is speculation. We cannot know with any certainty just what the army council of the IRA is up to. Even the two governments, with all the resources available to them, must have difficulty in assessing that body's strategic thinking. One can only look out for such clues as events may offer and then put oneself in the place of IRA/Sinn Fein, asking oneself: What would I do if I were in their position?
That organisation's strategy may, of course, contain further elements that we cannot at present guess at. It gives me no pleasure to say so, but hitherto Sinn Fein/ IRA has consistently out-smarted its unionist opponents, and has seriously tested the diplomatic skills of two sovereign governments.
It is a great pity that these skills were deployed with such malevolent effect over most of the past 30 years, instead of being put to the service of the Irish people through the democratic process.