Dublin and London are puzzled by the IRA. Which is why Tony Blair posed three key questions, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
Yes or no, Mr Blair asked? Will the IRA end all activity? Is the IRA committed to decommissioning all its weapons? If the two governments deliver all of the Belfast Agreement is the IRA war effectively over? Use any language you like to make those points, the British Prime Minister was ever so careful to stress. But, for pity's sake, give me a yes or no.
"The IRA statement is clear and unambiguous," said Sinn Féin, pressing the repeat button. "It's all the unionists' fault." Groan.
There were rumours in recent days that members of the IRA hierarchy - not quite an IRA convention but a body of IRA people - told Messrs Adams and McGuinness on the margins of the Sinn Féin ardfheis in March that they would not plainly state the IRA was going out of business.
Sinn Féin's Mr Gerry Kelly would not comment on this speculation yesterday. Reporters should ask the IRA such questions, he said.
What British, Irish and republican sources have confirmed, however - and a similar point was made by Mr Adams in north Belfast on Tuesday - is that there is dissatisfaction and disquiet at grassroots, middle and even some higher echelons of the IRA about what it is expected to do to bring politics back on track.
"There are mid-ranking activists in south Armagh, and Tyrone and Derry and West Belfast who have a certain power and clout in their communities by virtue of being in the IRA, and they don't want to give up that power and clout, and have made that known to the leadership," was how one well-placed source explained it.
"The IRA is involved in smuggling and robberies of whiskey, cigarettes and other goods and while the money from that criminality probably goes into the IRA's coffers, the people involved - some at leadership level - get, how shall I put it, good expenses," one security source told The Irish Times. "They don't want to give that up."
All smears, is how republicans respond, but there is no doubt that there is a cachet to IRA membership, and this could be a reason for the IRA's refusal to say unequivocally it is ending activity.
There are two schools of thought on what are the IRA's true intentions. The so-called securocrats have been dubious all along, sources say. They suspect that the republican movement has never had any intention of packing up until there is a united Ireland, and the strategy being followed now is of "long war, and long negotiations".
This strategy, the argument runs, while frustrating for everyone else, can never do Sinn Féin electoral harm because, in the often bizarre nature of this process, unionists will end up getting the blame anyway.
"Republican intransigence will be met by unionist intransigence but it is unionists who will be seen as irreformable," said a keen observer of Northern Ireland politics.
"If that analysis is correct then we are all in deep trouble," said a British source.
The more benign view, and it seems to be one held by the Taoiseach and Prime Minister, is that republicans genuinely want a way out of this crisis.
As reported here before, a senior Sinn Féin spokesman was adamant the republican long game was to create a united Ireland, but that the short to medium-term game was to see devolution restored, because that would help with the republican long game.
Mr Brian Keenan, the reputedly most senior of republican hawks, made an equivalent point in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, on Holy Saturday, as reported in the Boston Herald. He said that republicans viewed the Executive, Assembly and other institutions of the Belfast Agreement "as a method of building more political strength. And the more strength we have, the harder it will be for British imperialism to stay in this country".
To reinstate the institutions fresh elections are required. At the very least Mr Blair yesterday raised doubts about whether they would happen on May 29th in the current political deadlock.
But in the same speech Mr Keenan also said, "We don't believe in permanent war. But what we believe in is permanent struggle until we achieve the objectives of the [Easter] proclamation." Was he contradicting his first point? Does "permanent struggle" mean permanent negotiation and permanent political instability to assist in the long-term republican project? Or is restored devolution part of the permanent struggle? Questions, questions.
The British and Irish governments, and the IRA and Sinn Féin, can't keep going round and round in circles on this one ad nauseam. Bad enough that the Northern public is generally switched off from the unrelenting stalemate but when apparent governmental desperation sets in, even the Taoiseach and Prime Minister must wonder is it not time to cry a temporary halt at least.
But no, Mr Blair was again in entreaty mode yesterday. With Dublin and Washington, he insisted that republicans, irrespective of their countless denials, had not provided the clarity required to persuade the governments and Ulster Unionists that the IRA was doing a Michael Corleone, à la The Godfather, and going "legit".
At first glance, it seems extraordinary and politically risky that Mr Blair would continue to beseech the republican movement to deliver some crystal-clear wording. "Hardly fitting for a leader who has just won the war in Iraq to be dancing attendance on the IRA," you could imagine antagonistic Daily Telegraph editorial writers wondering.
Mr Blair even acknowledged in his statement yesterday that he was placing his reputation on the line: "It would be a genuine failure I think of leadership, all ways round, if we're not able to resolve this."
"Look," replied a British source. "The Daily Telegraph has been writing the same thing about the agreement for five years and isn't going to change now. No Prime Minister is ever blamed by the British public for failing on Northern Ireland. Why? Because the British public see Northern Ireland as a hopeless case, unsolvable, the dreary steeples and all that Tony Blair is sticking with this out of conviction."
Nonetheless, failure will be deflating for the governments. So, was Mr Blair with Mr Ahern riding the same tandem, setting himself up for a crash yesterday, or can Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness in the coming days help provide a new IRA statement burnished with explicit positive answers to Mr Blair's questions selected from P. O'Neill's thesaurus?
Without speedy answers, the Taoiseach and Prime Minister can't keep asking the same questions.