OPINION/Frank MillarIt's been a happier new year so far than Ulster's unionists might have dared imagine. The Ulster Unionist Party certainly shows signs of having its tail up. Courtesy of the alleged IRA spy ring at the heart of British government, David Trimble has (largely) escaped the blame game over the suspension of the Stormont Assembly.
Tony Blair's consequent demand for IRA "acts of completion" offers a policy around which Mr Trimble and his would-be successor, Jeffrey Donaldson, might think to coalesce and generally hang tough. On top of this, the census figures appear to have halted the republican juggernaut and assured unionists they are not going to be rolled into a united Ireland anytime soon. After the long war it seems Irish republicans face a longer wait still for an end to British rule.
Hence the extended seasonal jollity in Mr Trimble's office last Tuesday, even after Downing Street talks in which the unionists claimed to find the British Prime Minister seemingly "downbeat" about the prospects for significant republican movement on weapons decommissioning, the cessation of all other forms of paramilitary activity, and the eventual standing down of its private army.
At such high points for Mr Trimble it always seems prudent to enter a note of caution. "Beware the pendulum," he was warned a year ago last July as he entered the Weston Park negotiations insisting that there was but one issue - IRA decommissioning - on the agenda. Similarly, the UUP leader must now know that Mr Blair accepts Gerry Adams's contention that the demand for "acts of completion" does not portend an exclusively republican agenda for action.
At times of particular despair, some of Mr Trimble's colleagues have muttered darkly that there are always two processes at work in Northern Ireland: the political process involving all the parties, and a peace process essentially involving two sides - the IRA and the British government.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan has occasionally voiced similar unease, accusing both governments of chasing after "the hard men", echoing unionist fears that the existence of a private republican army gives Sinn Féin the continuing cutting edge.
In his celebrated speech in Belfast last October, Mr Blair insisted that the very thing - the threat of resumed violence - that might previously have given republicans leverage was now counter-productive and threatening the survival of the Belfast Agreement.
However, if he believes the world post-September 11th has changed the dynamics of the peace process, and put him in a position to call the shots, it is not apparent that republicans have drawn the same conclusion. Nor is there any evidence that the Irish Government has been telling them that these are the facts of the new world order.
Hence the Sinn Féin demand - backed by Dublin and (at least publicly) by the SDLP - that fresh Assembly elections must take place in May regardless of what may or may not happen in the meantime.
Martin McGuinness says that failure to hold the elections would represent unwarranted interference in the democratic process.
The Taoiseach himself sometimes asserts his belief in elections as the ultimate instrument of resolving intractable problems - thought not, it might be noted, in October 2001, when Mr Trimble's majority unionist mandate expired at Stormont and the DUP might reasonably have expected fresh Assembly elections to follow his first, failed attempt to secure re-election as First Minister.
Indeed, Mr Trimble's subsequent return as First Minister courtesy of that notorious deal - in which Alliance members temporarily re-designated themselves as unionists - is a reminder that the democratic imperatives to which this process has responded have proven highly flexible.
Some of Mr Trimble's advisers are urging similar flexibility now, arguing that the election should not proceed unless the IRA delivers "big time". This is not because they fear a UUP melt-down. To the contrary, their assessment is that with the power-sharing Executive still suspended, and with Mr Donaldson and Mr Burnside on board, the UUP might well hold its own against the DUP. No, the argument against rushing to an election, in the absence of convincing and comprehensive acts of IRA completion, is that it will be seen by unionists as further reward for Sinn Féin as it seeks to finally eclipse the SDLP.
The irony is that those census figures should have been a powerful boost to pro-agreement unionism. Mr Trimble will hardly need Mr Blair to spell out the constructive conclusion that, having seen the republican roller-coaster stopped in its tracks, the priority for unionism might be to stabilise the arrangements for the fair and good government of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.
In Mr Trimble's ideal world the IRA would now do the necessary business and enable him to finally see off his opponents. The fear is that shortage of time and a republican disposition to do the minimum necessary - coupled with legitimate Sinn Féin questions about which unionist leadership they may find themselves dealing with - will incline the IRA to offer less than Mr Trimble needs but enough, perhaps, to shift the blame game and force Mr Blair's hand on the election.
If an IRA deal enables the restoration of the Executive then plainly the present Assembly's mandate is exhausted and elections should proceed apace.
However, Mr Blair will not go into this decision blind. As much as Mr Adams and Mr Ahern, he will know that to proceed to elections without having Mr Trimble signed up is to offer no guarantee of the agreement's survival - and to court the very real risk that it may fall.