During the days leading up to Good Friday 1998, when the British and Irish governments were meant to be at loggerheads over the North-South relationship and cross-Border bodies, a civil servant told me privately that Dublin and London had no great difficulty arriving at a common position: the real problem was to find a formula that would be sufficiently elaborate to bring unionists, nationalists, loyalists and republicans on board.
In broad terms, this has also been the difficulty for the two governments over the last three weeks. The decommissioning problem, which was meant to have been resolved on Good Friday, has proven instead to be a deep and festering wound which needed more than the patch-up and plaster treatment it received on that occasion.
There is a nationalist view that decommissioning is only a symptom of the real problem, which is unionist unwillingness to accept that the tide of political and social change cannot be turned back. In the unionist world-view, however, the failure to decommission reflects the fact the IRA is "in denial" and refusing to face up to the reality that the war is over, republicans were unsuccessful and partition is here to stay.
Fortunately or otherwise, the two governments do not have to adopt either of these philosophical positions. Their job is generally perceived as one of finding a means, however complicated and even contradictory, of achieving forward movement. Neither Tony Blair nor Bertie Ahern is noted for ideological rigidity or philosophical posturing, they are pragmatic politicians whose basic approach is, "if it works, run with it."
That was the method applied on Good Friday 1998. Sinn Fein toughed it out on decommissioning and won. Nobody who expects to be taken seriously can argue that the "D" word is a requirement rather than an aspiration in the Belfast Agreement. David Trimble, for his part, scored a signal victory on North-South bodies in the same document: the final list was anodyne and unthreatening, although the concept of all-island administration, even in modest and limited spheres of activity, still causes unionists concern, just as it provides comfort to republicans and nationalists.
The agreement was delivered with the aid of an emollient letter on the weapons issue from Tony Blair to the unionists which other major participants did not take particularly seriously. It was a cobbled-together solution which allowed the Good Friday document to be published before a waiting world. With the help of some further cajoling and coaxing, the agreement was adopted by large referendum majorities, North and South.
The progress achieved so far has been a kind of miracle. But the decommissioning problem just won't go away. Fancy words have been tried and almost every formula conceivable has appeared in the various reports from Gen de Chastelain's decommissioning body. Never say never in the peace process, but this time it looks as if we may finally have reached the end of the line. The media are often accused of generating a false sense of crisis but few will need convincing that the current impasse rates higher on the Stormont scale than any of its all too numerous predecessors.
Representatives of the two governments were said to be "hard at it" in negotiations yesterday. As in the lead-up to Good Friday, sources said Dublin and London could agree more or less instantly on a joint formula but the problem was "bridging that gap" between, essentially, the Ulster unionists and the republican movement. The challenge lay in what insiders called "making that very fine judgment".
Even the thorny issue of demilitarisation, especially the elaborate security network on the hills over south Armagh, would not be allowed to stand in the way if a breakthrough was in sight, although there would be resistance from British government "securocrats". Pragmatism would be the order of the day if a deal were achievable.
The rest of us see difficulties and ask "why?"; peace processers see them and ask "why not?" It might appear to the casual observer that pro-agreement unionism is in a sorry state, but even here the perennial optimists have found sources of comfort in the comparative success of Trimble supporters in the elections to officer posts at the a.g.m. of the Ulster Unionist Council. The argument continues that if Mr Trimble had not given hostages to fortune in Washington by appearing, however ambiguously, to soften his position on decommissioning and the formation of an Executive, he would have secured another 50 votes in the leadership contest with the Rev Martin Smyth. That would have given Mr Trimble a more respectable tally of 63 per cent, instead of the 57 per cent he secured on the day.
On such crumbs of consolation do peace processes remain alive - just about. Perhaps Mr Trimble has more cause to worry in the success of Barry McElduff of Sinn Fein in this week's district council by-election in Omagh. Mr McElduff was at the centre of a storm of bad publicity over an unduly robust republican protest at a police liaison committee in the Co Tyrone town, yet still managed to double Sinn Fein's vote compared with the last local government poll three years ago. The SDLP vote, on the other hand, declined from 25 per cent in 1997 to 18 per cent this week.
ONE swallow doesn't make a summer but the prospect of this type of result being repeated on a broader scale in next year's local government elections - not to mention the Westminster poll for which no date has yet been set - must arouse anxieties among all constitutional parties. There has long been an argument that it is better for unionists to cut a deal with nationalism while the SDLP remains the largest party, rather than leaving it until a time when Sinn Fein might have taken first place.
It was understood that the two prime ministers are ready, willing and able to fly to Belfast in the middle of the coming week in the event of a joint position paper emerging from the Dublin-London consultations. But official sources reiterated that there had to be a solid basis on which to proceed: there was no question of flying on a wing and a prayer or of raising expectations without good reason.
Despite continuing criticism of Mr Mandelson's decision to suspend the institutions on February 11th, London remains unapologetic. Mr Trimble was still a better bet than any of the likely alternatives when it came to implementing the agreement.
The mood at the Sinn Fein Ardfheis was generally agreed by observers to be low-key; speculation about a possible challenge to the leadership proved unfounded. In many ways, the debate over Sinn Fein's possible role in the Republic after a general election has become more interesting and thought-provoking to republicans than the prospect of another coalition with reluctant unionists in the North.
Meanwhile from other, less well-lit quarters of the republican movement, the message is: "Why should the IRA deliver on decommissioning when there is no evidence David Trimble can deliver the Executive anyway?" The worry on the republican side was that Dublin might be tempted into another Hillsborough scenario by agreeing a document with London which, despite the urgings of the media and the political establishment, republicans could not accept. Dublin's new Foreign Affairs Minister, Brian Cowen, continues to be benignly regarded by republicans, however, and his political skills and experience may yet rise to the occasion.
