Deaglán de Bréadún assesses the different options likely to be consideredby the US and Britain on the future shape of Iraq.
After a shaky start, the military situation in Iraq is going quite well from the point of view of the Coalition.
At the time of writing, Basra seems at last about to fall, like a ripe if somewhat bitter fruit, into the lap of the British occupying forces.
Significant progress is being made in Baghdad, with the airport secure and the noose tightening on the Hussein family and their supporters.
Barring a sudden turn for the worse in military terms, the mood at the Bush-Blair talks in the place a US television reporter called "Belfast, Ireland" will be positive and upbeat.
All the good news from the battlefront will give increased urgency to the discussion about plans for post-Saddam Iraq.
We hear much about the cordial relations and unity that have developed between the US President and the British Prime Minister as they pursued their joint and, in diplomatic terms, quite lonely mission to bring the Iraqi regime to its knees.
Given that only one of them leads a superpower, it would be wrong to describe their relationship as a partnership of equals but the structures that are eventually set in place for post-war Iraq will show the degree of Mr Blair's influence over his new-found friend from Washington.
Mr Blair wants a strong United Nations' role but this is far from the minds of the hawks in and around the Bush administration.
They have been planning this war for a long time and the shaping of post-war Iraq is an integral part of those plans.
As the war rages across the border, 300 Americans are billeted at a series of seaside villas, 20 miles outside Kuwait City, where they meet daily to plan the future of Iraq.
We are told that one group is drafting proposals for the post-Saddam media, whereby newspapers, radio and television will cease to be mouthpieces for the regime and become western-style outlets.
Another group, from the US Treasury, is reportedly discussing the substitution of the present Iraqi currency, bearing Saddam's image, with US dollars.
This would be only a transitional measure while new, indigenous Iraqi banknotes were being prepared.
Yet another group is working on a new criminal code for the country while others discuss such mundane issues as the Iraqi power supply.
None of this appears to leave much room for the United Nations, which Washington seems to have sidelined up to now.
In the immediate aftermath of the expected military victory, it is expected that Gen Tommy Franks, head of US Central Command, will act as a type of pro-consul, in a role similar to the one played by Gen Douglas MacArthur in Japan after the second World War.
Another man of military background, Maj Gen (retired) Jay Garner, is meant to head up the new civilian administration that will take over the running of much of Iraq, re-organising its 23 government ministries.
There were reports last week that the US Defence Secretary and doyen of the hawks, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, had proposed the immediate establishment of an indigenous interim authority in southern Iraq, even before the war had ended.
However, State Department officials have been briefing the media to the effect that any kind of recognised authority would obstruct the emergence of new political leaders from inside the country and give an undue advantage to opposition leaders returning from exile.
Some Defence Department officials and Pentagon advisers have a close relationship with Mr Ahmed Chalabi, head of the anti-Saddam opposition group in exile, the Iraqi National Congress (INC).
They see him as a potential future leader of Iraq but their enthusiasm is not shared by colleagues at the State Department.
The 58-year-old US-educated banker left Iraq in the 1950s and has been tried in absentia and convicted for bank fraud in Jordan, although he claims the case was a politically motivated set-up that was engineered by jealous rivals.
The INC is one of six anti-Hussein organisations - including groups representing northern Iraq Kurds and southern Shia - that have formed a coalition of sorts under US auspices.
In Brussels last week, US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, promised there would at least be some kind of role for the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq.
Mr Blair said later: "There's no doubt at all that the United Nations has got to be closely involved in this process. That's not just right. It's in everyone's interest that it happens."
British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, said in a speech on Tuesday that his government will seek new Security Council resolutions "to endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration".
Little has been said about Mr Bush's own particular preferences. He apparently likes to see his political associates jockeying for position.
Perhaps he will find some middle way between the demands of his hawks and the pleas from Mr Blair, maybe a UN role in parallel with the embryo administration in Iraq, through the appointment of a special envoy representing the world body's secretary general, Mr Kofi Annan.
Another hot topic for discussion between the two leaders is the long running Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the proposed "road map" to setting up an independent Palestinian state. Mr Blair has staked a great deal in political terms on getting significant movement towards a solution, with US support.
Mr Bush has to contend with the powerful pro-Israeli lobby back home but he will also be conscious of the need to assuage Arab anger over the Iraqi conflict.
Which still leaves the long-standing problems in implementing the Belfast Agreement.
But these, for all their stubborn complexity and awkwardness, are likely to prove the least difficult of the three.