Martin McGuinness believes the IRA's contribution to the peace process has been undervalued. Listening to his words on Hearts and Minds, Noel Thompson, the excellent political journalist on BBC Northern Ireland, responded matter-of-factly: "You mean they stopped killing people?"
With hours to go before the Sinn Fein ardchomhairle meeting, McGuinness's political instincts were tuned to the constituency he hopes to impress. Seamus Mallon was "coining phrases for unionists to use against republicans"; McGuinness mocked "securocrats" for their unreasonable demands for assurances about decommissioning. Then he let it slip.
"We can drive the political agenda on the island of Ireland, that's what we got to do." Sinn Fein has already made a good start on that agenda. Its vote share in the Republic is the fastest growing of any party at local level, and it can reasonably expect to win up to three more Dail seats in the next general election. That means exercising power to the same level as the PDs do at national level, while exercising a larger amount locally.
The real threat to Sinn Fein's power is not the suspension of the Northern Ireland institutions, however upsetting to most citizens, but its ability to regain the title of All-Ireland sultans of spin. Sinn Fein loses little in the suspension scenario. As long as it can be seen as victim, not agent, its political status will not suffer anywhere on the island.
Sinn Fein has always made clear that the institutions are a means to an end. The longer the suspension continues, the more it may therefore stand to gain. If Sinn Fein can complete the spin by condemning British intransigence and unionist privilege, then the way is clear for it to hold its electoral base in both North and South.
The schedule for decommissioning may be shaped by Sinn Fein's ambitions here rather than by its immediate interests in the Northern Ireland Assembly. That schedule is already clear. Both Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair are now planning election strategies based on 2002 elections. So is Sinn Fein. However effective the campaign was to encourage unionists to jump first - and note how their stock rose as a result - it is inconceivable that Fianna Fail would enter government with Sinn Fein while the IRA still holds its arsenal.
Fianna Fail has been a democratic party since its inception in 1926. Therefore, Sinn Fein knows it must resolve the arsenal issue within two years in the first instance, not six months. It knew this all along.
McGuinness's anger with the UUP deadlines, and with the perceived support for them by the Northern Ireland Secretary and the SDLP, arises partly because Sinn Fein has, perhaps temporarily, lost control of the spin. But his irritation also derives from the threat to longer-term strategy, which arguably assumed a schedule designed to achieve maximum political impact by achieving closure in good time for the elections here.
That scenario would envisage Sinn Fein entering government as a minority partner, like the PDs, on a wave of public approval because it had finally "persuaded" the IRA to play ball. It would also ensure that Sinn Fein, and not Ahern's Fianna Fail, would be seen as the bonafide author of peace, strengthening further its electoral and inter-party negotiating power.
The IRA army council appears to be working to the same schedule, even if not all its members and ordinary followers are party to the plan. Make some signals by May 2000, play dungeons and dragons for two more years, then deliver a knock-out political and military victory by timing a major gesture with Sinn Fein's participation in an Irish government.
However, the IRA's nervousness last week in running away from the De Chastelain Commission indicates that different understandings of the game plan have taken hold. If commitments are made now, Sinn Fein needs to know that the endgame can be spun out so that it can use it to best effect when it counts - in at least two years' time. Meanwhile, the bomb placed conveniently by the dangerously amateur Continuity IRA reminded civil servants and politicians that the IRA expects credit for keeping dissidents in line, and that only Sinn Fein can hope to do so.
The British government's suspension of the democratic institutions is problematic from a number of perspectives, not least the real challenge it poses to inter-government relations. After the people of Northern Ireland, the Irish Government loses most as a result of Peter Mandelson's decision.
Ahern's room to manoeuvre has constricted almost to the point of suffocation, while at the same time he can't but be aware of how cynically his political stand has been exploited by Sinn Fein negotiators.
Ahern may not form the next government. He may form it with a Labour minority. Either way, Fianna Fail remains Sinn Fein's best hope of achieving real power in the South. The risk Sinn Fein takes by alienating Ahern now is that even his legendary pragmatism will not tolerate the degree of manipulation it has exerted. That is a very real danger.
Does it matter? The Long War is about waiting. Sinn Fein can afford to wait until the general elections in or around 2006, knowing that would yield a more fluid schedule for resolving the arsenal issue. Meanwhile it can continue to build at local level, and undermine the Labour and Fianna Fail votes in some areas here. As Tony Blair will be returned with a majority in the next British elections, it is reasonable to suppose that even in a worst-case scenario, some form of devolved government, will exist in Northern Ireland long before then. That is important for democracy. But it is not essential for Sinn Fein.
Sinn Fein may not have entered the democratic process with the intention of using the IRA as a political tool. Now the IRA is playing politics: either that, or it is being played like an old fiddle by the leaders of Sinn Fein.
mruane@irish-times.ie