AT times over the past two days, the IRA and Sinn Fein must have felt the Downing Street Declaration was being revisited. Several important strands of that document, similar to the Bruton Major document, were unpopular with republicans but, ultimately, it could not be resisted.
A central plank of the Downing Street Declaration was that Britain had no strategic, economic or selfish interest in Northern Ireland. The logic, therefore, was that if the IRA continued the war it was simply waging a sectarian battle against unionists, not Britain.
Sinn Fein challenged the authenticity of this element of the Declaration over several months but it was never an argument that it could substantially undermine. While eventually it was the Hume Adams Reynolds axis that helped produce the IRA ceasefire, the Downing Street Declaration was also an important early factor.
The Anglo Irish communique has presented Sinn Fein and the IRA with a similar challenge. There are elements of the document, such as the proposed election, that are anathema to republicans but, nonetheless, it is hard for them to deny that the communique meets the central Sinn Fein and IRA demand for inclusive negotiations.
When the IRA tried to justify breaking the ceasefire, it stated: "The resolution of the conflict in our country demands justice. It demands an inclusive negotiated settlement."
Yesterday, the IRA repeated that a successful resolution of the conflict demanded "justice and an inclusive negotiated settlement without preconditions".
It blamed the British government for the collapse of the ceasefire "thus far" and added, more positively: "We repeat that we are prepared to face up to our responsibilities others need to do likewise."
Republicans are suspicious by nature. They felt, with some justification, that the British government and the unionists acted the "dog in the manger" over the 17 months of the ceasefire and refusing to set or agree a date for substantive talks.
But now, as the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, has stated (and most likely told the IRA on Wednesday), the British and Irish governments solemnly agreed that an elective process would lead to all party talks "without. preconditions" on June 10th. Sinn Fein would be involved in those talks in the event of the IRA restoring its ceasefire.
Whatever suspicions the republican movement might have about the elective process and the bona fides of the British government, it would also be accused, with justification of "acting the dog in the manger if it refused to declare another cessation of violence".
To carry on with the war would seem like a hopeless, virtually anarchistic gesture. Whatever about Mr Hume's relationship with Mr Gerry Adams, the SDLP would have no alternative but to end its relationship with Sinn Fein. And, likewise, the Government and the influential US administration would leave Sinn Fein and the IRA isolated.
Sinn Fein and the IRA also have great difficulties with the Mitchell report and the concept of parallel decommissioning. But, as one senior SDLP figure stated, to reject the Anglo Irish communique would be a "calamitous political mistake".
Mr Adams said after the Canary Wharf bombing he needed something to sell to the IRA to re establish the ceasefire. The Government and the SDLP are in no doubt that Mr Major and Mr Bruton have provided him with a very saleable commodity in the form of the London communique.
