It's almost eight months since the Stormont Assembly elections, and the formal review of the Belfast Agreement has been anything but short and sharp, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Are Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair now presiding over a dangerous failure of politics in Northern Ireland?
There will be no hint of it this afternoon as the Taoiseach and Prime Minister preside over the latest round of talks with the parties at Lancaster House in London. They will, we may be sure, exude more of the same "purpose" and "resolution" that have characterised their extraordinary commitment to the peace process thus far.
Yet today's gathering, attended by a distinct lack of ambition and expectation, surely highlights the continuing failure of the formal review of the Belfast Agreement to live up to the promise of being "short, sharp and focused".
Almost eight months have elapsed since the Stormont Assembly elections. And the seemingly prepared script for this afternoon's press conference offers the prospect of more talks in September, just in time for the second anniversary of the fourth suspension of the institutions of the agreement.
Things have also changed significantly since last October's first anniversary. The Protestant electorate seems to have decided the necessary response to Sinn Féin's ascendancy is to hasten the realignment of unionism by handing the majority leadership to Dr Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party.
In passing, it should be noted that - contrary to the insistence of some commentators - David Trimble's Ulster Unionists have not yet had an "SDLP moment".
However, it is hard to see how the UUP can develop an alternative political narrative while the declared policy of both governments and the other parties remains devolution-based. It is also unclear whether Mr Trimble can make the political recovery, or find the personal energy, effectively to start over again.
Moreover, the disposition of some of his potential successors - most notably the South Antrim MP, David Burnside - would suggest that unionism is moving to another place, and that in "one unionist party" lies the future.
Importantly, Mr Burnside has made it clear that (assuming he can save his Westminster seat and is in any position to negotiate terms) the coming together of unionists he envisages must await the "post-Trimble" and "post-Paisley" era.
This brings us to one essential question about the current political stand-off. For all their talk about the need to make early progress, have the political establishments in London and Dublin in fact decided that nothing much will happen until Dr Paisley departs the stage?
To raise the question is to imply no disrespect to the DUP leader. On the contrary, "the Big Man" delights in telling people of his successful diet and continuing good health. He knows only too well that not everyone in the political and official world inquiring after his well-being is hoping for reassurance.
Their implication is that Dr Paisley is probably a prisoner to his uncompromising past and that his eventual successor - commonly assumed to be Peter Robinson - will prove more pragmatic and thus easier to deal with.
The personalities apart, Sinn Féin certainly believes the British and Irish governments have bought into a DUP timetable which - whatever the party's public protestations - in fact foresees no real political movement before the party completes its triumph over the UUP at the next general election.
The private Sinn Féin assessment is that the DUP is on "a journey" similar to its own at an earlier stage of the peace process.
There was a hint of that from Mr Robinson last weekend when, in a marked change of tone, he signalled that he would be taking his time over the negotiation of what he still maintains must be an "alternative" agreement.
And the harsh reality for both governments is that a DUP decision to "hang tough" will chime with the mood of its electorate and thus carry no penalty where it ultimately matters. The added worry for London and Dublin is that Sinn Féin, too, for all its public impatience, is preparing for another long game.
Nor is it impossible to see why some senior civil servants encourage Mr Blair to be sanguine about this prospect.
As the Prime Minister himself has observed more than once, the absence of devolved institutions in Belfast, however regrettable, has not triggered a security crisis. The Anglo-Irish diplomatic experience of the last 10 years has been of inevitable, if slow, triumph over seemingly insuperable obstacles and barriers.
Whatever his detractors might tell themselves, moreover, Mr Robinson has sufficient grasp of the political realities, and is possessed of all the necessary political skills, to bring unionism to a fresh accommodation with republicans and nationalists, should the leadership eventually fall to him.
That said, a policy of "Waiting for Robbo" would seem both insulting to him and to underestimate dangerously the continuing power and influence of Dr Paisley, even into retirement. For there is no basis for an assumption that Mr Robinson thinks to settle with republicans on lesser terms than Dr Paisley. And those terms, of course, are defined in Mr Blair's original requirements for republican "acts of completion".
David Trimble was undone when Mr Blair and Mr Ahern sacrificed the clarity of their demands as subsequently defined in the British-Irish Joint Declaration and plunged into last November's election.
At the same time - for all that their rhetoric in the interim would suggest otherwise - Mr Blair and Mr Ahern did sign off on a deal which they (and Mr Trimble) believed would bring republicans to the desired point over time.
Sinn Féin remains wedded to that deal. But if it is to be delivered, Gerry Adams must know the DUP's ascendancy means that "the terms" must be more, rather than less, explicit and demanding. In turn, Dr Paisley and Mr Robinson would be well-advised to anticipate that Sinn Féin will require even more of them than of Mr Trimble by way of guarantees about unionist good faith.
Mr Blair and Mr Ahern, meanwhile, need to show they have an option if both sides remain content to let the situation drift. For, as they have said many times before, if the process doesn't move forward, it will almost certainly go back.