By BBC Ireland correspondent Denis Murray

A senior republican said to me shortly before Christmas that decommissioning was just not going to happen.

If you want the IRA to go away, he said, let them - you don't kick a dog to see if it's still asleep.

Bad call.

The republicans seem to have believed once the unionists went into the new devolved government, they would not want to leave it.

They also seem to have believed the British and Irish governments would either continue to leave them alone on decommissioning, or keep asking them.

This week, London and Dublin could not have made it clearer.

The guilty parties in all this are the paramilitaries.

'Something to behold'

Imagine what Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern must have said to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at their meeting on Wednesday.

Bertie Ahern said he had spoken bluntly.

When normal diplomatic language such as "a frank exchange of views" means a right shouting match, speaking bluntly must have been something to behold.

What has really appalled many unionists was the revelation from the IRA that its go-between with the decommissioning body had only met its head, General John de Chastelain, three times, including last Monday night.

That was within hours of the deadline of the end of January, agreed by Sinn Fein during the review of the process last November.

The unionist conclusion is decommissioning is not exactly at the top of the republicans' agenda.

Well, it is now. They have been well and truly beaten around the head by the governments, by the unionists, and perhaps crucially, the nationalist SDLP.

'No excuse'

Remember the days when the unionists used to accuse the SDLP and Sinn Fein of forming a pan-nationalist front?

This week the deputy leader of the SDLP, Seamus Mallon, who is also the deputy first minister, said the IRA had no excuse whatsoever for not decommissioning.

Sinn Fein in turn are accusing everyone else of dancing to a unionist tune, that the unionist veto is being imposed again, that the orange card has been played.

That is because David Trimble got the Ulster Unionist Party to change its policy last November of not going into government with Sinn Fein without IRA decommissioning, only by saying he and his three ministerial colleagues would resign if they were not satisfied with decommissioning progress.

It seem clear Mr Trimble was satisfied there would be progress by the end of January, which is why he set the next meeting of his party's policy-making body for February.

The government has initiated the legislation for suspending devolution for one reason - to avoid those resignations.

They would collapse the process, whereas putting the assembly and executive on hold would leave a process that could be revived.

Verge of tears

The bizarre thing is David Trimble sounded genuinely upset during at least one BBC interview about the situation and Martin McGuinness was on the verge of tears, at a Stormont news conference.

Two parties in complete accord that the agreement and its workings must not fail - and both parties in complete, fundamental disagreement about the way out of the decommissioning morass.

No one wants suspension to happen, but the deadlock is so complete that right now, there seems no way out other than suspension.

That will undoubtedly cause damage, and Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson, who has so far been able to take a back seat, will now have to assume a pivotal role.

The great Scottish sports writer Hugh McIlvanney once wrote of the latter stages of George Best's career that it was like watching a Hollywood starlet take a razor blade to her face.

Watching two parties committed to the Good Friday Agreement bring it to the verge of being torn apart is a similar experience.