The clearest possible signal of the intentions of at least part of the IRA was served yesterday by the abortive bomb in Derry. Destruction on a vast scale, with possible loss of human life, was the inevitable objective, avoided only by the earlier warning.
No one can claim to understand the subterranean tensions and debates going on inside the IRA or the wider republican movement at this critical moment for the entire island, but yesterday's bomb, the one last week, the ones in Fermanagh, Antrim and Belfast, and the series of attacks in England all seem to add up to an organisation that has lost any sense of direction or control. There is nothing to be won politically by continued violence, and everything to lose. This has been acknowledged by Mr Gerry Adams and other leaders of Sinn Fein; and yet the absurd and dangerous fantasy lives on.
Mr John Hume called the perpetrators "the enemies of Ireland", pointing out that Derry, the latest target of insanity - two planned bombs in a week - has made immense strides in recovering from the social and economic disruption of 20 years of violence. The possibility that Mr Hume's attempts to broker a new IRA ceasefire are the motive, and that a clear message rejecting them is the point of the bombs, obviously cannot be discounted. There is a frightening propensity among the tough men to avoid anything that looks like common sense.
What is equally disturbing is the unionist response. If the message from the IRA, or some of its members, is "nothing doing", the old conditioned reflexes on the unionist side are in working order and disposed to answer in the same language. Mr Hume's contacts to try to save the peace talks may be doomed to failure, but they do not smack of collusion. And yet many in the unionist community cannot get rid of the idea that they do, or accept the notion that, if historic change is to be made, a historic dimension is needed. Bridges are necessary that have never been erected before, and Mr Hume has had the courage to break the ground on which they may be built.
Last night's comings and goings at Westminster underline the sense of foreboding hanging over the whole political process, with Dublin uncertain about whether Mr Major will break ranks and make a statement that could exacerbate the possibility of securing a ceasefire, Downing Street adamant that no such statement is on the way, and Mr Trimble playing the ever present gadfly, urging Mr Major, on pain of alienating unionist opinion, to make a premature comment on his talks with Mr Hume. Drift is palpable, the whole carefully structured process is, in Sir Patrick Mayhew's words, in danger of running out of steam, and ahead, if hope is abandoned, lies only disaster.
So many attitudes have been cast in stone that one can wonder if the main antagonists have lost sight of the goal at the end of the talks process and are already reconciled to the impossibility of achieving a settlement. The method by which a permanent peace Is reached is less important than the fact that any agreement must eventually be endorsed by the people in both communities. And yet all minds continue to be focused on the minutiae of procedure.