David McKittrick: The IRA's long, slow-motion farewell to arms

Yesterday, the fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, brought not the hoped-for breakthrough but yet another stalled political initiative. And that in the same week as collusion and murder by security forces and loyalists were shown to be not simply the stuff of lurid republican propaganda.

Tony Blair's attempt to persuade the IRA to carry out "acts of completion" and put paramilitary things behind them seemed to be on the brink of success. London, Dublin, the republicans and David Trimble's Unionists had all spent months trawling over hundreds of details aimed at achieving a quantum leap in the peace process. Demilitarisation was on offer, as well as policing advances and other moves.

Washington gave its blessing, as emphasised by George Bush's recent surprise trip to Hillsborough. The man in the Falls Road taxi, meanwhile, seemed happy enough to approve a deal that would balance concessions from both the IRA and the British: republicans have huge faith in the negotiating skills of Sinn Fein.

Although no actual commitments were given by the IRA, everybody seemed to know the score and an understanding seemed to be in the air. Yet at the last minute, last weekend, it all suddenly crumbled: the eagerly awaited IRA language turned out to be cloudy, imprecise, delphic. Frantic attempts to extract clarity and certainty proved fruitless and, unless the IRA suddenly and unexpectedly comes up with something fresh, things are stuck.

The lack of clarity about paramilitarism means that the Unionists will not go back into government with Sinn Fein, which means there is no government. The modest example of regime change that nearly everybody wants is not going to happen. Six weeks ago, after an exhausting bout of negotiations at Hillsborough, one who met Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern late at night described them as "knackered and pissed off."

It's a fair bet that this phrase again reflects the dispositions of the two leaders this weekend, as they wonder what went wrong. Last time they were fed up with most of the local politicians, but now it is almost exclusively the IRA that has produced the prime ministerial exasperation.

Sinn Fein and the IRA have been left under considerable pressure since London, Dublin, Washington, important strands of Irish America and David Trimble all believe it is their turn to move. But although there is near-unanimity on this, there is no consensus on just why the IRA failed to deliver. One theory is that they never intended to, being bent on extracting British concessions and then reneging when it was time to pay the price.

Another has it that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were all set to clinch the deal, but at the last minute somebody in the IRA shook their heads and reined them in. Nobody knows for sure. But the sort of activities chronicled by Sir John Stevens, in his report on the Finucane murder, reminds one of the distrust that has helped to form the republican mindset.

It could be that the pressure on the republicans will ease at the end of next month. Assembly elections are scheduled for 29 May, and for a decade the Sinn Fein vote has been rising inexorably. One of the reasons for this is that many moderate nationalists have taken to voting for Sinn Fein in order to encourage them to continue along the political path. That will probably happen again this time, benefiting Sinn Fein in its battle to eclipse the SDLP. If Sinn Fein should get more Assembly seats than the SDLP, they will triumphantly claim an enhanced mandate as the major nationalist political voice. They will also be able to argue that their unyielding stance has been vindicated.

But there is enough discomfort visible in the republican body-language to suggest that this was not their game plan all along. It doesn't feel right, and besides Tony Blair could decide to postpone the election until the autumn.

In the absence of a sudden advance, the talk now is of parking things until the autumn. Messrs Blair and Ahern will mull things over for the next few days, and then next week announce whether that's how it has to be, or whether somebody has come up with a workable alternative.

The Blair-Ahern irritation will be shared by many who had hoped to get the Assembly up and running again, and had hoped too for a historic initiative on IRA weapons decommissioning. Yet the general mood is closer to exasperation than despair. This is partly because nearly everyone believes that the peace process has an underlying strength which protects it through difficult times.

The bottom line, though, is that while the IRA has not yet steeled itself to discard all its guns, it shows no sign of deciding to get them out of the arms dumps and actually using them. Although it cannot yet bring itself to formally confirm that the war is over, everything suggests that it is, in slow-motion, in the business of bidding a farewell to arms.

Because of this, the general assumption is that the peace will hold, negotiations will continue behind the scenes and sometime, perhaps in the autumn, the breakthrough will eventually be made. Meantime, though, Northern Ireland still harbours deep reservoirs of exasperation.