Failure to agree on institutional issues may not wreck the peace process but an end to the IRA remains the prize, writes Frank Millar, London Editor.
Was that it then? Did we blink and miss something - like "a fork in the road" perhaps? Was this another one of Mr Tony Blair's famous deadlines casually passed by - another "point of decision" disdainfully declined?
It might prove to be so. At Leeds Castle on Saturday the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, told us they believed what was now "on offer" from republicans was "reasonable in its substance and historic in its meaning".
Having been cruelly mocked for that "hand of history" soundbite back in 1998, Mr Blair thought this time to underplay what had been achieved. Yet by the time the Northern Ireland parties had put their gloss on Saturday's outcome there was a sick feeling in some quarters that whatever had been achieved might start to unravel before they reconvene at Stormont tomorrow.
Nor could Mr Blair complain about the weary media response to his hope that the next phase of this process would be concluded well before Christmas.
The point was that there wasn't supposed to be any more process. "This is it" was Downing Street's insistent message following Mr Blair's earlier acknowledgement that people would be entitled to be sceptical if he and Mr Ahern emerged from these talks reporting progress and a commitment to carry it forward.
Even as the parties converged on Leeds Castle, Number 10 acknowledged that many journalists and others simply didn't believe Mr Blair, while insisting they were wrong. And, of course, those most openly dismissive of Mr Blair's deadline were the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin. Indeed, Sinn Féin's Mr Pat Doherty must have felt particular satisfaction for having publicly dismissed as "nonsense" Mr Blair's suggestion that Northern Ireland politics would come to an end on Saturday afternoon. If they agreed on little else, the DUP and Sinn Féin were at one in their presumption that "there will always be process".
Yet some of us had been inclined to take Mr Blair at his word. And it is possible to allow that he thinks still to force a decision shortly on the end of IRA paramilitarism, overall acts of completion, and the restoration of a power-sharing government at Stormont.
For if Mr Blair stalled on Saturday, he did not quite retreat. Nor did Mr Ahern. "There is nothing more for us to do," the Taoiseach declared as both men insisted only the parties could now resolve the outstanding issues. And if they could not? Mr Blair seemed still resolved to "find a different way to take this process forward".
To republicans this should be code for proceeding if need be without the majority unionist party. That was certainly Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams's message as he stressed people would be watching to see if Mr Blair was prepared to "hold off" because the DUP was "not yet ready" to embrace political change. Indeed, by their own definition it can hardly mean anything else.
Republicans claim ownership of this process, thus the idea of any process without them is a contradiction in terms. It has also been the long-accepted wisdom that for the British to deny republicans the process is to invite them to "go back to doing what they do best". For republicans and many others the dictum still holds good that "if the causes of conflict are not removed the potential for conflict remains".
It is not clear that the British state feels itself totally bound by this analysis any longer, not least because of the passage of time and a belief that in the post-September 11th world a return to war is simply not an option for the IRA. Mr Blair has cheerfully observed on a number of occasions that political stalemate in the North no longer equals a security crisis.
That said, the Prime Minister's words on Saturday did appear to offer republicans hope, and to prepare to pin the "blame game" on the DUP. Intimating that he considered the issue of IRA arms and paramilitary activity all but settled, Mr Blair said he could not then believe "people will allow institutional issues to wreck what would otherwise be a very good deal".
This fitted with the "spin" started on Friday by the SDLP that - Sinn Féin having got across its message that it could deliver all the IRA's weapons by Christmas - the pressure was now on the DUP to relax its demands for radical changes to the Belfast Agreement. Mr Adams hammered home the point on Saturday, offering his "strong view that the IRA is not the problem" and that the problem rather was a party - the DUP - which came to a negotiation and refused to negotiate.
And it would seem axiomatic that - if the Rev Ian Paisley is to be granted the prize of an end to the IRA - the DUP cannot realistically think to win the double and demand wholesale change to the Belfast Agreement approved by the majority of people in Northern Ireland and the Republic in the 1998 referendums.
To adapt a phrase from Mr Blair's famous "acts of completion" speech of two years ago, you only have to think of republicans bowing the knee not once, but twice to Dr Paisley to see the idea for the absurdity that it is.
If that reflects one side of political reality, however, it might also prompt some niggling doubt about the assessment offered by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern as to precisely what is on offer from republicans. In fairness to both men, senior republicans were signalling privately that the effective end of the IRA was "the prize" that might be attained. Yet when Mr Adams was asked if the IRA might be disbanded by Christmas, he told his questioner he could "send a letter to Santa Claus" if he wished.
Perhaps Mr Adams was simply baulking at the use of the "D" word. Unionists on the other hand might have detected more of the ambivalence and ambiguity which Mr Blair insists no longer serves this process.
In any event, Mr Adams's throwaway remark certainly underlined perhaps the most important statement of Saturday afternoon, when Mr Blair confirmed that he and the Taoiseach had as yet received no statement from the IRA.
After last October's failed Sinn Féin/Ulster Unionist negotiation, Mr Ahern ruefully reflected that he and Mr Blair had spoken to everybody but the IRA's "P. O'Neill". This prompted the suggestion that next time "Mr O'Neill" was precisely the person the two premiers would need to speak to. And he is plainly the man from whom Dr Paisley waits to hear, with the detail, timetable and all the other specifics which Mr Blair and Mr Ahern failed to provide on Saturday.
Mr Blair has told Dr Paisley he might expect an IRA statement in the coming week. Pending that, he will continue to hang tough. "I'm too old to be bluffed," he declared on Saturday: "We'll believe it when we see it." The DUP leader might eventually overplay his hand, but he lost nothing this time. While Downing Street is optimistic that a deal will be done, for the time being at least the blame game goes on.
And Mr Blair and Mr Ahern may still have tough calls to make.