"What on earth did they think was going to happen?"
This was Chris Patten's famous demand of an Ulster Unionist leadership seemingly surprised by his recommendations on the future of policing in Northern Ireland last autumn. In a different context, it is a question the unionists and the British have been asking in respect of Dublin over the past week.
His own New Labour experience will have taught Peter Mandelson all he needs to know about the transient nature of political friendships and alliances. The Secretary of State will not have enjoyed being demonised by Sinn Fein, the SDLP or officials in Dublin. But he will consider it rich that he should be dubbed Peter Unionist - the man who reinstated the unionist veto - by the very people who cheered him just weeks earlier when he faced down David Trimble over the RUC.
Last Friday night, Mr Mandelson faced down Sinn Fein and the IRA, Seamus Mallon and, it is now evident, the Taoiseach. The consequences for Mr Mandelson, and for all of us, may not become clear for some time. There was certainly a chill factor to Mr Adams's declaration that republicans had witnessed the failure of politics. At this writing, usually well-informed sources are indicating their belief that a return to violence cannot be ruled out.
That would raise fundamental questions about the peace process and the whole future direction of Anglo-Irish policy, which might now only be guessed at. And the hope will be that, with a Sinn Fein leadership committed to exclusively peaceful means, there is nothing inevitable about this apocalyptic vision.
However, there was an absolute inevitability about the events of last week, which ended with Mr Mandelson's decision to suspend the institutions of the Belfast Agreement. The only surprise is that the Irish Government could have been surprised on the night, and, one week on, should still be affecting such surprise.
It is now clear that the IRA "never entered into any agreement, undertaking or understanding, at any time with anyone on any aspect of decommissioning". That is the position as defined in the current edition of An Phoblacht.
This, by the by, raises serious questions about the "seismic shift" in republican thinking divined by Mr Blair last July. In fairness, those Sinn Fein spokesmen who shared the big tent with us at Stormont told us at the time that it was all "a lot of cod". But who advised Mr Blair to the contrary? On what basis was Mr Trimble urged to form the executive then, in certain expectation that decommissioning would follow?
All sides were at it again in November during the Mitchell review. By their own account, the republicans were not party to any understanding, save that of Mr Trimble's own defined position - that he could enter government with Sinn Fein only for a short period, in anticipation of IRA decommissioning to follow. We subsequently learned, courtesy of Mr Pat Doherty, that the republicans did not take that position altogether seriously, calculating that, once the institutions were up and running, Mr Trimble would find it impossible to bring them down.
The Irish Government cannot have made the same calculation. Certainly any such fond hopes would have been dispelled the minute Mr Trimble handed control of his destiny to Sir Josias Cunningham, by way of the famous post-dated resignation letter. No: Mr Trimble, on the contrary, believed he would have the full backing of both governments for suspension if the IRA had not obliged by January 31st.
And why would he not? For as recently as Wednesday, in the Dail, Mr Ahern was defining his position in Mr Trimble's own terms. "Everyone understands and accepts that participation in government can only be on the basis of a democratic mandate. Whether people like it or not, it is not compatible, beyond a short transitional period, to have that democratic mandate with armed backing. I could not agree to that," declared the Taoiseach.
Yet even as late as Thursday night, Government sources were spinning to the effect that the British had earlier knowledge of the IRA's "new" position than they had previously acknowledged, with the continuing implication that this had, and retains, the potential to reverse Mr Mandelson's decision.
British sources yesterday were irritated and mystified by this muddying of the waters, especially given confirmation by a Government spokesman that the IRA statement had not changed throughout the course of last Friday, and became operative only once given to Gen. de Chastelain.
The operative decisions which mattered in the end were those made by Mr Mandelson, supported by the Prime Minister: that the IRA statement was not enough for Mr Trimble, and that suspension was the necessary evil to avert his resignation and the uncontrolled collapse of the entire agreement.
It would have been a true diplomatic double-whammy had Dublin failed to realise (a) that Mr Trimble's hands were truly tied, and (b) that London, in the absence of at least a firm start date for decommissioning, would move to bolster his position and prevent his resignation. But perhaps the real angst behind the apparent confusion is the painful awareness that the biggest failure of all may have been to understand where the republicans were coming from on the issue of decommissioning.
It is with the consequence of that failure that all sides will now have to grapple.