If encouraging and supportive sentiments could resolve the crisis of the Belfast Agreement it should have happened over the past week. Both Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists were sending out positive signals as they went into discussions with Senator George Mitchell. Former Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, declared that there could be an executive very soon. He said that the parties were not as far apart as some might believe.
But when Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists sat down with Senator Mitchell it was apparently back to the old battle-lines. Mr Trimble says that he could not get straight answers from Sinn Fein about what would follow if an executive were to be brought into existence. His attempts to make progress by "sequencing" and "phasing" of the establishment of an executive and the decommissioning of IRA weapons appear to have run into the sand. As the Mitchell review enters its fourth week, there is nothing concrete to indicate that progress has been achieved.
Mr Trimble is in an utterly invidious position. The anti-agreement faction within his own ranks is limiting his room to manoeuvre. His deputy, Mr John Taylor, has all but jumped ship - and may shortly be forced overboard by those who remain loyal to the leader. Lord Molyneaux, in an implied criticism of Mr Trimble's leadership, declared at the weekend that the Belfast Agreement will lead to the end of unionism. Any attempt by Mr Trimble to move in advance of the "no guns, no government" position carries the risk of tipping the critical balance of power within the party against the leadership. Yet he has come back to the discussions, evidently seeking to find a trade-off with the republicans.
Speaking yesterday on RTE Radio's This Week programme, Mr Gerry Adams acknowledged that Mr Trimble is the best bet for Sinn Fein if it wants to get into government and that he must do what he can to help him. But Mr Adams does not require to have it spelled out for him that the best way to help David Trimble is to have clear assurances from the IRA that it intends to disarm in the context of a functioning all-party executive. Mr Adams yesterday urged Mr Trimble to get on with his task of establishing the executive and to allow General de Chastelain to deal with decommissioning. But Mr Adams knows full well that General de Chastelain cannot deal with that which has not been given substance.
Sinn Fein insists it does not have decommissioning within its gift. It can only use its influence with the IRA once political institutions are seen to be operating successfully, it declares. In other words, the unionists - and all other wholly-democratic groups on this island - are to be asked to support an executive, some of whose Ministers will be sitting in government while they remain under the direction and control of a well-armed paramilitary organisation. It is a repugnant and dangerous concept, recognised for what it is and rejected by the Taoiseach in his Sunday Times interview earlier this year.
Yet in the transition from an undemocratic to a democratic polis there can be an overlap or a blurring in which guns and government may co-exist, albeit briefly, as they did for example, in the founding weeks and months of this State. In his willingness to explore the possibilities of sequencing and phasing, in his earlier appeal to Sinn Fein that it should "jump together" with the UUP, Mr Trimble is de facto recognising this and has continued to display flexibility and much courage. Sinn Fein may find a way into government if its IRA colleagues let it be known that they too accept these limits. The political establishments of both jurisdictions may live with a short-term fudge. But it will not go beyond that. Republicans, in Mr Trimble's phrase must choose between the "party" and the "army".