He doesn't want to use the 'D' wordbut it seems clear IRA disbandment is what Tony Blair is about, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Big steps now. That's Tony Blair's order of the day.
The British Prime Minister enters the Small Dining Room in Downing Street just a little after 10 a.m., in familiar shirt-sleeve mode, plainly some hours work already under his belt. Time is tight so we cut to the chase. While he plainly doesn't want to use the "D" word it seems clear IRA disbandment is what he is about.
Conventional wisdom has it that Irish republicans never yield to British ultimatums, and Mr Blair knows well the importance of words: "Sometimes . . . they can end up being an obstacle to progress. But I think everybody knows what we are saying . . . That the process of transition is over. We cannot any longer have a situation where people are half-in and half-out.
"When I talk about acts of completion what I mean is we need to try and do this in a big step forward, where the British government fulfils its mandate, the paramilitaries realise they can no longer use force in order to pursue political ends, and we reach a situation where Northern Ireland's politics become normal, at least in the sense that there is no mixing paramilitary activity and politics."
For the journalist, of course, there is always the besetting danger of flattering access. Listening to him, it all sounds remarkably straightforward. Even more so, in a sense, simply observing him at close quarters. As he looks into the middle distance the thought occurs that if rational analysis married to decent instinct and steely resolve were enough, he'd already have the problem solved.
To this prime minister - plainly repelled by the sectarianism which has disfigured Northern Ireland for so long - it is almost inconceivable that any political leader can fail to get it, could think to revisit a scarred and ugly past.
Yet the future, he avows, remains for the people of Northern Ireland and the parties there to decide.
Soon after his now-famous Belfast speech other conventional wisdom kicked-in, suggesting that for all Mr Blair's strong rhetoric, he understands well enough that IRA disbandment will be slow in coming, and, if and when it does, at a considerable price. Aficionados of the process reached for that well-worn word - choreography - to presume yet another round of negotiation, compromise and barter.
In his interview with The Irish Times today Mr Blair insists it isn't going to happen that way. Yes, he stands ready to take big steps of his own to complete the implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
However, his clear implication is that either the republicans will move to break the current impasse, or that it will endure. To Sinn Féin's demand for the reinstatement of the Assembly and Executive Mr Blair retorts: "I can't make this work without willing partners, and those willing partners have to come together themselves."
Nor does he offer republicans any hope that they might ultimately benefit from continuing stalemate: "If there is an impasse here as a result of confusion over paramilitary and political ends, there is no way I can cook up some solution with the Irish Government and slam it down. It is not going to work."
So, no joint British-Irish authority, then, as an alternative nationalist/republican option. No threat of sanction if the IRA does not comply, simply an assessment that the process can't go forward, fidelity still to his 1998 Balmoral promise that there will be no "imposed" solution.
Intriguingly, Mr Blair signals his belief that he and the Sinn Féin leadership are on the same wavelength, and that Gerry Adams knows it's a case of Big Steps now: "I believe so, yes, because I think they want that, too, they know it is not now about symbolic acts or gestures."
If correct, of course, that will leave some unionists wondering if they've already missed the choreography, and nervously awaiting Mr Blair's own acts of completion.
Meanwhile, loyalists face an unprecedented British crackdown, as Mr Blair vows to treat paramilitaries on both sides as criminals.
The British prime minister appears resolved to rewrite the rules of engagement. But will the hard men accept that the peace process rules are his to write?