By the time Bertie Ahern went to Downing Street on Wednesday, still saying he wanted the susp ended political institutions restored in "days rather than weeks", any strategy to achieve this result appears to have fallen apart.
Once the institutions were suspended on Friday, the Government devised a specific strategy. According to the Fine Gael leader, John Bruton, the secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach, Paddy Teahon, described this strategy to him in a confidential briefing on Monday.
Bruton says Teahon told him that "the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach had agreed that the institutions would be restored before the weekend on the basis of a clarificatory statement by the IRA (elaborating the commitment it gave to Gen. de Chastelain the previous Friday), whose text would be agreed before, but released after, the restoration of the institutions by the Secretary of State".
The Government has not disputed this account, although sources have said there were more elements to the strategy. Most important was the need first to get recognition from the British government that the IRA's statement to the general was of great significance.
If such a recognition was forthcoming, the sources say, the Government would then have attempted to persuade the British government to try to convince the UUP that the IRA statement, or some further clarification of it, provided the basis for a restoration of the institutions. Nobody thought that it would be easy.
In a further effort to persuade David Trimble of the significance of the IRA move, the Government urged Trimble to meet the general. Government sources indicated that the IRA had told the general much more than he committed to print in his report. If only Trimble could hear this extra information and get further clarification from Gerry Adams, he might yet be convinced, these sources said.
The prospects of success in this endeavour were already slim, and that was before the IRA announced the withdrawal of its offer, and its representative from the de Chastelain body, on Tuesday afternoon.
The Government had expected the interlocutor to be withdrawn, but the announcement of the withdrawal of the offer as well in the midst of frantic Government efforts to persuade the British government and UUP of its worth proved the final straw.
Of course, in reality, the IRA offer could be restored as quickly as it was withdrawn. But the IRA gesture of defiance made the prospect of persuading Trimble that the IRA meant business even more remote.
On Wednesday evening, after the Downing Street talks were over, a Government source repeated the "days rather than weeks" mantra, but conceded for the first time that this outcome now appeared remote. The sound of wheels grinding to a halt had finally reached the ears of the Government.
Indeed, the withdrawal of the IRA interlocutor from the de Chastelain commission; the cancellation of its secret offer on decommissioning; the failure to agree a joint British/Irish strategy on where to go next; Trimble's departure for the US on Thursday and Peter Mandelson's departure next Tuesday all confirmed the impression of momentum leaving the process like air from a punctured tyre.
The Irish medium-term strategy now centres on one point - the last fortnight of exhaustive contacts with Sinn Fein, and through it the IRA, has produced an explanation by the IRA of the "context" in which it would consider decommissioning.
The de Chastelain report of last Friday - based on knowledge of this IRA explanation - says the IRA would consider decommissioning "in the context of the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement and in the context of the removal of the causes of conflict".
In traditional IRA language, "removal of the causes of conflict" means a British military and political withdrawal and the ending of partition. However, Government sources have indicated that the IRA's "context" for decommissioning is much more realistic than this.
In particular, the contacts between the Government and the republican movement in recent weeks have centred on securing an IRA commitment to decommissioning in parallel with the dismantling of military bases, the reduction in British troop numbers, the full implementation of the Patten Commission report on policing and progress on other reforms, including that of the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland.
There is widespread speculation that the IRA position outlined in private to Gen. de Chastelain suggests that this is the "context" in which decommissioning could take place.
On Wednesday the Taoiseach emphasised his and Mr Blair's commitment to the "full implementation" of the Belfast Agreement. In other words, he hopes progress will continue on all these nationalist concerns. Through making progress on these matters, the Government hopes that at a future date a firm IRA commitment on decommissioning will be forthcoming and that the withdrawn offer can be reinstated and clarified or improved upon.
The Government insists that the round of consultations and contacts ("there is no review", a source repeated yesterday) about to take place can be short, and should take nothing like the six to eight weeks mentioned in some quarters. But while Government sources insist that the plan is to get the institutions back quickly, none could outline yesterday how this might come about.