The British Prime Minister is surely right to fear continuing political drift, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Tony Blair says next week's Leeds Castle talks must mark "a point of decision" for the political process in Northern Ireland. But if he is serious then the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, will have to reach their own moment of decision when they meet in Sedgefield this morning.
There was nothing casual or accidental about Mr Blair's renewed warning to the North's political parties at his press conference on Tuesday.
Consciously and deliberately, he repeated what he had said at the conclusion of the Lancaster House discussions in July - that if the DUP and Sinn Féin cannot agree the basis for restoring the Stormont Assembly and Executive then "an alternative way forward" would have to be found.
The word in Whitehall is that "this is no idle position". The problem, however - and Downing Street must be aware of it - is that nobody seems inclined to believe it.
It is entirely reasonable for Mr Blair to decline to define what might be his Plan B when, as Secretary of State Paul Murphy insisted next day in the Commons, the British government is proceeding on the basis that the Leeds Castle talks can and will succeed.
The widespread perception, however, is that Mr Blair's reluctance is probably better explained by the fact that he hasn't a clue what the alternative might be.
And while Mr Murphy insists next week's outcome cannot simply be a staging post to further negotiation, the current calculation within the DUP and Sinn Féin is that both governments will almost certainly have to content themselves with positive commitments to further process.
That, after all, is what Mr Blair settled for last October, when he called the Assembly poll, having twice postponed it because he could see no point in having an election to nothing.
Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin captured the sceptical mood in July when he observed that Mr Blair had set deadlines before, only to see them pass by. Also in the Commons on Wednesday Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble reminded Mr Murphy that we are approaching the second anniversary of the Prime Minister's famous "acts of completion" speech, in which he told republicans they had reached "the fork in the road" and the moment of choice.
The Ulster Unionists may content themselves that they "won the blame game" two years ago when Mr Blair suspended the Assembly for the fourth time.
But, as Gerry Adams observes, Sinn Féin caught absolutely no blame where it ultimately matters to it, within the nationalist constituency in the North. Having virtually destroyed the SDLP, it seems likely that Sinn Féin will be even less disposed than usual to operate to a timetable set by the British or the DUP.
The DUP, likewise, is well able to calculate that there will be no electoral punishment from the unionist community if it decides to hang tough and declines to make any firm commitments this side of the Westminster general election.
Of course, both parties might yet surprise everyone. And there is an entirely rational basis for the hope in London and Dublin that - having eroded the centre ground, and seeming incapable of being outflanked on right or left - the DUP and Sinn Féin might do the deal and make it stick.
Why indeed would they delay? Both parties (albeit for different reasons) want devolution restored. They also know what has to be done if they are to achieve it.
Irish analysts are apparently convinced that Mr Adams and his colleagues want to lose the IRA, not least because Sinn Féin's political project in the Republic requires it. And within sections of the DUP leadership, at least in private, there is an acknowledgment that by doing the original "heavy lifting" the Ulster Unionists have made it much easier for the DUP to enter a partnership government with the republicans.
The problem as ever is with the terms demanded, as opposed to those on offer.
From any perspective it would seem a tall order to craft an agreement which, far from appearing threatening to the Rev Ian Paisley, he could actually sponsor and claim as his own. Yet that in essence is what would have to be done.
And one hopeful nationalist volunteers: "Why wouldn't Paisley go for it? After all those years of opposing them, he could present himself as the man who finally took the IRA's scalp." The potential problem with this benign outcome, as one sceptical unionist ventures, is: "Paisley might want the scalp still dripping with blood, hoisted on a red, white and blue pole for marching through the streets of Ballymena."
This is not a flippant point. Mr Adams might well be serious about getting rid of the IRA. He might even have advanced plans for a dignified and orderly IRA retreat. However, the republicans have consistently said they will not accept humiliation, and it seems improbable that they will accept it now for the political ease of the DUP.
This is why Mr Adams's words in London this week were probably instructive. The Sinn Féin president was insistent that it was the Belfast Agreement, and not the DUP, which should prevail. This meant that Sinn Féin entitlement to ministerial office was not conditional upon IRA decommissioning, and that the arms issue must be dealt with in the context of ongoing political change.
If Mr Adams means what he said that would appear to rule out any notion of republicans accepting a period of political "quarantine" or otherwise dancing through unionist hoops, while the DUP reserves its position on whether to resume power-sharing government. Some DUP sources think there is scope for advance by way of a two-stage process, involving initial bilateral moves by the British and republicans on outstanding matters left over from last year's British-Irish Joint Declaration and Sinn Féin's final aborted negotiation with the Ulster Unionists.
Here, too, however, there is an obvious potential deal-breaker, because authoritative DUP sources are saying privately that the devolution of policing and justice powers is not on the party's current agenda. Hence one well-placed DUP insider puts the odds on a breakthrough next week at just 10 per cent, with a "work-in-progress" outcome the best to be hoped for.
Which brings us back to Mr Blair and today's meeting with Mr Ahern. It cannot be assumed at this writing that the Taoiseach agrees that "we can't have this endless negotiation". Yet Mr Blair is surely right to fear continuing political drift, with all the attendant risks of community alienation and political disaffection, and the possibility of "events" over time further disinclining the would-be risk-takers on both sides.
Might he then persuade Mr Ahern that the two governments must set the pace and show the way, by defining the precise terms of the deal they require, putting it up to both sides and then inviting the Assembly to decide? It would be a bold move. But it might just embolden and liberate DUP and Sinn Féin leaderships which, left to their own devices, might require rather more time than can be safely granted.