If, against most expectations, we witness a historic breakthrough at Stormont today, all praise and glory will fall on Tony Blair. Fresh from conflict in Kosovo, the British Prime Minister has taken command, unilaterally imposed this deadline, warned the parties they have "one last chance" for peace, and defied them not to take it.
For once his spin-master supreme, Alistair Campbell, will not have to worry about tomorrow's headlines. They will write themselves: "Iron Man Tony Wins Ulster Peace."
But much of the real credit will belong elsewhere - with Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the SDLP, Deputy First Minister-designate, and, so often, an unsung hero of this difficult and protracted process.
Some who observe at close quarters say Mr Mallon himself can be a difficult man to deal with. It is an open secret that his relationship with David Trimble is strained, to say the least. Some accounts have it that for weeks, if not months, on end the First and Deputy First Ministers have little or no real engagement.
But for seven months now Seamus Mallon has been canvassing "the solution" on decommissioning and the creation of the executive which Mr Blair in the last few days has made his own, and which he will today press the parties to accept.
The essence of the Mallon-Blair plan is that republicans must accept the "obligation" to decommission, and have completed it by next May, or see the executive collapse.
Its genesis is to be found in Mr Mallon's speech to the SDLP conference last November when, to the surprise of many senior colleagues and the Irish Government, he said he would agree to Sinn Fein's expulsion if the obligation was not met within the time frame envisaged by the Belfast Agreement.
Acknowledging unionist fears that republicans might think "to maximise sectoral advantage" from the agreement, while failing to honour "their decommissioning obligations" under it, Mr Mallon said: "I believe this will not occur - and that it is not intended. But no one should have any doubt that if it did happen the SDLP would rigorously enforce the terms of the agreement and remove from office those who had so blatantly dishonoured their obligations."
This was a profoundly significant development, given the largely uncontested view until that point that only the Ulster Unionists believed the agreement imposed any decommissioning obligation at all.
Crucially, Mr Mallon disputed Mr Trimble's assertion that decommissioning was a precondition for Sinn Fein's entry into government. But with equal vehemence, here he was rejecting Sinn Fein's insistence (maintained to this day) that its obligation extends only to using such influence as it has, in concert with the other parties, to bring decommissioning about.
Sinn Fein's literal take on the Good Friday text, with which many on the Irish Government side privately agree, is that there is neither a precondition nor a penalty clause at the other end should decommissioning never occur.
Small wonder, then, that Mr Mallon's intervention was greeted with virtual silence by the Dublin establishment, not to mention by his party leader, Mr John Hume. Small wonder, too, the relief some of them felt when, amazingly, the Mallon initiative went virtually ignored by Mr Trimble and the Ulster Unionists.
To some friends and allies it seemed possible for Mr Trimble to move - acknowledging that he had lost the battle over the precondition, but proclaiming victory in the war (so to speak) over the obligation for total disarmament, and exclusion for Sinn Fein if the IRA failed to deliver.
The Ulster Unionist leader was unpersuaded, considering the Mallon proposal too theoretical, and too long-term, to find favour with those in his party wedded to "product" up front. Moreover, he realised, despite a general interpretation to the contrary, that Mr Mallon was not actually committing the SDLP to proceed with the executive without Sinn Fein.
So the moment passed, and with it the original October deadline and, apparently, the Mallon plan. Certainly it seemed but a distant memory by February, and the Taoiseach's famous decommissioning interview with the Sunday Times. The Mallon "backstop" was conspicuously absent from the Blair-Ahern Hillsborough declaration at Easter and, again, from the aborted Downing Street agreement on May 14th.
The generally whispered explanation was clear: John Hume didn't support it, and the Irish Government considered it a non-runner.
At one level, the thinking was simple enough: that if, somehow, the executive could be got up and running, it didn't make sense to build in the instrument of its collapse one year on, when (hopefully) the new arrangements might have bedded-down and the decommissioning issue lost some of its potency. At a more fundamental level the thinking was more straightforward: that the concept of exclusion, like the original unionist precondition, simply did not come within the terms of the agreement.
But insiders have told The Irish Times it was in the aftermath of the aborted May 14th agreement that Mr Blair came to the conclusion that the Mallon plan, or some variation of it, represented "the only likely solution". Mr Mallon discussed the idea at length with the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach (whose own crucial behind-the-scenes role with the republicans in particular, sources say, should not be underestimated).
And the Blair-Mallon convergence is a matter of record. On June 17th, Mr Mallon recast his proposal, embracing the "inescapable obligation" as opposed to "precondition" and the need for "collective responsibility" in the event of failure to meet the May 2000 target. Within the week Mr Blair had defined his scheme to give "certainty of achievement" and "certainty of sanction" should the IRA fail to deliver.
Key issues remain for today's negotiation. But one scenario emerging last night suggested:
the nomination of the executive this week, but with:
the transfer of powers delayed until September,
coinciding with a report from the International Commission on modalities and schedules for decommissioning, providing for:
the first stage of decommissioning by December and:
completion by May 22nd 2000, or:
suspension of the Belfast Agreement and a Review as provided for in the Good Friday text.
On the basis of his, and his party's declared position, this would appear a non-starter for Mr Trimble and his Ulster Unionist colleagues. Asked a few days back whether he could allow a month between formation of the executive and the start of decommissioning, Mr Trimble suggested his party could be in meltdown within 48 hours.
Second, the Ulster Unionists have said they will insist that Sinn Fein delivers commitments on behalf of the IRA - something Mr Adams and company have maintained they cannot do - and that decommissioning must begin simultaneously with the creation of the executive.
Third, and perhaps crucially, Mr Trimble would be unlikely to accept that he and his colleagues should find themselves out of a job should the IRA ultimately refuse to oblige. The UUP leader will almost certainly therefore press Messrs Blair, Mallon and Ahern on what political arrangements they envisage would follow the collapse of the executive.
Against that, Mr Blair will impress heavily upon them the potential loss of the gains, constitutional and otherwise, made on Good Friday. And he will assert, as he can, that this proposal places the onus above all on a republican movement which has thus far refused to decommission, declared itself without obligation to do so, and seemingly considered itself immune to any sanction should it refuse.
The postponement of Gen de Chastelain's report, coupled with indications of better-than-expected language from Sinn Fein, encouraged the first real hopes last night that something was moving in the process. But the hopes were dogged by sceptical belief that, in the end, words would be all on offer.
If that proves to be so, and it is terribly possible, then tomorrow will give rise not to celebration, but to an elaborate game of blame allocation. It will be no consolation to Seamus Mallon to know that, of all the participants, he assuredly will be catching none of it.
