Blair claims a continued commitment : to the Good Friday Agreement and the agreed terms of power sharing, telling Sinn Fein that they are cast in stone and guaranteed against unionist attempts to renegotiate.
But whether or not the IRA chooses to : disband, Blair has ensured that there cannot be any more 'peace process'.
Republicans have been unstinting in their willingness to compromise, in particular participating in the partitionist executive and disposing of arms. But disbandment now seems unlikely without some i tangible benefit.
if Republicans do jump the IRA, there will still be no return to the 'peace process. The whole purpose of it was to bring the "extremists' into the centre ground. In such circumstances Republicans will have become the centre ground, indistinguishable from the 'constitutional nationalist' SLP. It would therefore no longer be a peace process, but the final ending of significant opposition to British rule in the North of Ireland.
This is why the government has dismissed bringing forward next May's assembly elections. Democracy, trumpeted as the building block upon which peace would be based, has now become "divisive'! Instead the elections may be put back by a year or more.
Under the circumstances Blair's prom.. ensured that ......