PRESIDENT Clinton has often praised those who take risks for peace. He also took risks. He alienated Britain risked damaging his own stature by doing business with the political leader of the IRA.
But everything he did worked issuing a visa to Mr Gerry Adams advanced the date of the IRA, ceasefire.
Allowing him to raise funds and to admitting the Sinn Fein leader to the, White House helped keep the peace process going. So too did the President's conference on investment in Northern Ireland in May 1995 and the triumphal visit to Belfast in November.
At the beginning, US interest wash episodic. It became fully engaged the run up to the Belfast visit. Intensive American diplomacy achieved 11th hour agreement between the British and Irish governments on the twin track process.
After the visit, the US embraced the role of honest broker, to honour the Presidents commitment to keep nudging the process along. The President's National Security Adviser, Mr Anthony Lake, spends fully a quarter of his time on Northern Ireland according to an official. It is a sensitive and, recently, not a very rewarding task.
The American role was diminished somewhat when the British seized back control of the process on the day of the Mitchell report. Nevertheless, the White House remains a full time player in the process. In the wake of the Mitchell report, all sides lobbied the White House, including Northern Ireland Office Minister Mr Michael Ancram, the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, Mr Adams and this week Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble.
If there was a dialogue of the deaf going, at least the Americans were listening to and counselling all sides.
PRAGMATISM now drives American policy. The natural instincts of administration officials are to find compromises which bring everyone along with the process. They know the unionists have to be brought to the table. But pragmatism can be loaded. When White House officials seemed to embrace elections, it caused consternation on the Irish side, and reassurances had to be given that the US was not endorsing any one proposal.
The Government initially saw the US role as casting a benign shadow over the British Irish process, reminding the stronger partner that it was under critical scrutiny from its major ally. Mr Spring last week characterised the White House as a "resource", providing a dynamic which might otherwise be lacking.
Mr Adams put it this way the British had not come to the psychological point of dealing with the enemy, "that's why the US is so important a player".
The unionist view of the US role, in the aftermath of Friday's bomb, is more narrow. "It is to put pressure on Sinn Fein/IRA, and on their friends in Irish America, to resume its ceasefire", said Mr Trimble this week.
Before the bomb, there was a dogged optimism about the process. "We were making real progress and had found some common ground," said a senior official this week.
The bomb shattered White House complacency and created a new and more convoluted challenge. "We are now really focusing on how to get she ceasefire back into place," an official said.
Only history will reveal how many American fingerprints are on whatever deal, if any, emerges from the British Irish summit next week. But it is the only party looking constructively at all the options inter party talks, a referendum, elections and/or a Dayton type conference.
The White House probably never meant to get in so deep. It is now in some respects a victim of its own success. The President is so identified with Northern Ireland peace that its breakdown reflects badly on White House foreign policy.
HE IRA bomb forced the White House to make some crucial decisions. One was to step up its own diplomacy. "We will not stop in our efforts until peace has been secured," said Mr Clinton.
"We must redouble our efforts," said Senator Mitchell. Another was to keep open lines to Mr Adams. To cut him off would not be pragmatic for an honest broker and would given the IRA one more reason to rejected the process.
This poses some domestic risks for President Clinton. There has been sniping from the right over his relationship with Mr Adams.
Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for tough measures if Mr Adams did not denounce the bombing, such as immediate closure of the Sinn Fein office in Washington. But by and large, strong bipartisan support in Congress is holding.
Some of the most ardent supporters of Mr Adams are in the Republican dominated House International Affairs Committee, chaired by New York Representative Ben Gilman.
Republican Senator Bob Dole is unlikely to make it a campaign issue. He told me in New Hampshire two weeks ago "I think Clinton's on the track" on Northern Ireland, and has warmly welcomed the Sinn Fein leader to Capitol Hill.
The mainstream media, the New York Times in particular, have criticised Mr Major rather than Mr Clinton for his handling of the process, but some conservative newspapers have seized on an opportunity to hammer the President.
The Wall Street Journal, a trenchant critic, warned that "Mr Clinton's questionable tactics have caught up on him". In a scathing editorial, it said President Clinton's welcome of Mr Adams into the White House made him "a more esteemed friend of the administration than the shunned President of Taiwan", and Mr Clinton's unilateral courtship of Gerry Adams "elevated the IRA's expectations beyond a level that could be controlled by Mr Major".
The conservative Washington Times also accused Mr Clinton of "foolhardily" injecting himself into the situation and in an opinion piece yesterday, charged the President with squandering American power on terrorist appeasement.
The President will not walk away from Northern Ireland. A nationwide "Irish Americans for Clinton Gore '96" effort is getting under way. But the "feel good" element has gone from Irish policy.
Mr Clinton is due to be honoured in New York on March 11th as "Irish American of the Year" and will host a St Patrick's Day party in the White House. It won't be much of a celebration this year, however, unless the ceasefire is back in place.