The Democratic Unionist Party lost last week's Westminster and Northern Ireland local government elections. Under intense pressure and despite the humiliation of the Patten Report on policing, and the lack of progress on decommissioning, moderate unionism increased its share of the vote over the Assembly election of 1998.
The predicted meltdown did not occur. The Ulster Unionist Party has more Westminster seats than the DUP and only dropped from 168 councillors on the eve of the election to 154 today. Many of the losses were to republicans, not to the DUP.
However, there is no doubt that the handling of the peace process in recent months and years by the British and Irish governments has hugely weakened the moderate centre of Northern Ireland politics, the UUP and the SDLP.
The British government has a job to do. It must make clear to Sinn Fein the negative consequences of a failure to decommission. But for the Irish Government the problem is even more profound. The issue is clear: what is modern Irish nationalism all about?
Bertie Ahern has made a reality of his claim in 1995 that irredentism is dead. Acceptance of the consent principle and the amendments to Articles 2 and 3 of Bunreacht na hEireann represent an end to the "cold war" on the island. Unfortunately, the republican movement does not see Good Friday as a historic compromise between unionism and nationalism but merely a stage in the march towards Irish unity.
The prediction by Sinn Fein spokesmen of the inevitable arrival of a Catholic majority in Northern Ireland has become a comfort blanket for them. They echo not the legitimate aspiration of the unity of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, but the destructive blood-and-soil sentiments that have wreaked havoc in the Balkans. They also assume no Protestant could be interested in modern-day Northern republicanism.
The SDLP should be exonerated from these remarks. John Hume has always interpreted the lowering of barriers between peoples as the honourable way to work for Irish unity. But republicans' claims of some coming victory in an ethnic breeding war reflect a sad truth which a long line of Southern republicans came to recognise. The fact is that brutal sectarian animosities are not the monopoly of one community in Northern Ireland.
Sean Lemass summed it up when he expressed his frustration with Northern nationalists: For them the day that Partition ended would be the day they would get their foot on the throat of the Orangemen across the roads.
There is, however, another tradition in Irish republicanism that resists the role of being forced into uncritical support of their co-religionists in Northern Ireland. Thus de Valera, in 1957, proclaimed that the solution of the Partition question was strictly an Irish problem, one that must be worked out between Irish people, North and South. It must be achieved on a satisfactory basis for both sides.
This realism was echoed by Lemass. In his famous speech in Tralee in 1963 he told his followers that the government and parliament of Northern Ireland existed because they had the support of the majority of the population and that the solution to the Irish question could only be found in Ireland by Irishmen.
Then, as now, the fundamental interest of the Irish State can only be defended by standing up to the unrealistic voices preaching some ethnic coup in Northern Ireland.
What does all this mean for the relationship between North and South? We have made a start in the Belfast Agreement to finding ground upon which we can co-operate and improve relations between the two jurisdictions and the two communities on this island. It is also a framework for an end to demonisation of the British state and for further rapprochement between east and west.
Ulster Unionists want peaceful co-existence with the Republic. We have embraced a settlement that recognises that an Irish dimension is important for the self-esteem of Northern nationalists. We believe all this can be achieved while respecting the right of the majority community in Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.
The ban on Sinn Fein ministers attending North/South meetings is not part of a strategy to wreck the North/South aspect of the agreement but a tactic designed to increase pressure on republicans to decommission. The ban can be lifted the moment the IRA keeps its promise of last May to put its weapons completely and verifiably beyond use. The leadership of Ulster Unionism believes the agreement offers the solution to the problems which have dogged the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
That is why unionists of good faith must point out forcibly to the Irish Government and people how seriously this framework is being threatened by the failure of paramilitaries to decommission.
If the Irish Government is dragged back by tribal impulses it will have disastrous consequences for both parts of Ireland.
It is easy, under political pressure, for Fianna Fail to start beating the old tribal drums again. That is why statesmanship - not party politics - has to direct the spirit in which the agreement's arrangements between the two jurisdictions is carried on.
Ulster Unionism has encouraged a new beginning. Against opposition and long and bitter memories in the unionist community, David Trimble has argued the advantage to all on this island of better relationships based upon the arrangements in the agreement. It is up to the Irish Government to consolidate the new beginning.
It means accepting that these compromises will soon be in danger if there is no decommissioning. It means a resolute face against manifestations of paramilitarism, North and South. It means an end to the rhetoric of Catholic triumphalism. It means an end to the vilification of those in the Republic who do not automatically take sides with Northern nationalism.
It means a full-blooded embrace of the constitutional implications of the acceptance of Northern Ireland's status. It means clearly telling the theorists of technocratic anti-partitionism that the North/South bodies rest upon the consent of unionists and cannot be pushed beyond the remit established in the agreement without their freely given consent.
The amicable compromise can deliver better relationships. Not a united Ireland but a peaceful, co-operative Ireland with a greater volume of concrete and mutually beneficial achievements to point to.
Despite the electoral setbacks in recent days, the agreement has a future, provided all aspects are implemented. Unionists require confidence in Irish intentions on decommissioning. The process of burying old-style physical force republicanism was already begun a long time ago in the Republic. It is essential this unhappy phase in Irish history is buried once and for all.
Steven King is an adviser to David Trimble