The British government is enthusiastic about evidence of the DUP's serious intent, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
The Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party will (eventually) be able to do business with Sinn Féin.
And if Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble's survival strategy requires the DUP's chief strategist Peter Robinson to fall on his face, then he would do well to find another one.
These are two key conclusions to be drawn from the DUP proposals. For sure, the document published yesterday represents an opening gambit at the start of what will inevitably prove another protracted and difficult negotiation.
But it is a clever one and - notwithstanding some predictable knee-jerk reactions from SDLP and Sinn Féin quarters - there is discernible excitement within the British government about what it clearly considers impressive evidence of the DUP's serious intent.
This is not to suggest an absence of doubt - either about Sinn Féin's response to the particulars of this DUP blueprint, or more generally about the ability of the two parties to seriously engage any time soon.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams voices a widely held suspicion that such an engagement may have to await the "post-Paisley" era.
Similarly - for all its public insistence that the suspension of the Stormont Assembly be lifted immediately - some British officials suspect Sinn Féin is content to play things long, in anticipation of electoral advances in the Republic come June and the final destruction of the SDLP come next year's expected British general election.
As one seasoned Whitehall observer puts it: "Wouldn't it be ironic if the DUP was climbing aboard the peace train just as the wheels come off?"
Yet on the evidence of yesterday's DUP presentation one thing seems certain: Dr Paisley and his colleagues do not intend to offer themselves as an easy scapegoat in any new "blame game".
To the contrary, this negotiating document - bearing all the signs of Mr Robinson's considerable craft - has, at least temporarily, turned tables and left others with questions to answer.
During his Powerpoint presentation for Mr Blair on Thursday (which the prime minister reportedly found impressive, for its novelty as well as its substance) Mr Robinson insisted the DUP could not be counted among those unionists who - in Martin McGuinness's memorable phrase - "don't want a Fenian about the place." And he doubtless took particular pleasure in highlighting page 15 of the DUP Concept for Devolution which makes clear the party "will not operate the Mandatory Coalition with Sinn Féin before it meets the Blair necessities" as spelt out in the prime minister's famous speech in October 2002 demanding paramilitary "acts of completion".
Here was the original "Protestant Unionist Party" signalling that in fact all the Fenians - including Sinn Féin - could be made welcome provided the IRA conforms to the demands of the British and Irish governments as spelt out in paragraph 13 of last year's Joint Declaration.
Having affirmed their power-sharing credentials, the DUP now wants to know why won't the SDLP join a voluntary coalition pending delivery by the IRA?
And if a break in pan-nationalism is inconceivable, why not devolve power to the Assembly (as opposed to ministers) and allow the Assembly to discharge many of its responsibilities by means of a weighted-majority voting system following a local government model?
Mr Trimble complains this would actually permit the restoration of devolution prior to paramilitary acts of completion.
His problem is that Mr Blair might be attracted by a scheme which offers to remove the twin issues which have dogged the Trimble years - prior decommissioning and "exclusion".
Mr Trimble's other problem is that many of his Assembly members will now be willing the DUP to succeed.