Richard Haas, President George Bush's special adviser on Northern Ireland, expressed some puzzlement last week about the conduct of political leaders in the province: "Normally, politicians are quick to take credit for progress, yet I am struck that people here who deserve credit don't claim it."
His words are worth bearing in mind today when the Taoiseach and Tony Blair are once again flying into Belfast for crisis talks to deal with what David Trimble has described as "the deteriorating situation" in the peace process.
For many people there is now something almost surreal about the contrasting images of daily life in Northern Ireland, which are depicted on the nightly news bulletins. On the one hand, there are ugly scenes of sectarian violence on the streets of Belfast and the fear, as Drumcree approaches, this could spread to other areas.
At the same time, often within the same news bulletin, there is every appearance normal politics is working better than ever. This week saw the announcement of large spending increases in health and education. Bairbre de Brún graciously accepted congratulations all round. David Trimble and Mark Durkan work well as a team. Across the province, unionist and Sinn Féin representatives replicate the partnership in local council chambers.
Even David Trimble admits this aspect of the Belfast Agreement is a success. The UUP leader, chastened perhaps by Richard Haas's comments, remarked last week: "There is no crisis in the North-South Ministerial Council. There is no crisis in the British-Irish Council. There is no crisis in the Executive, not even in relation to the DUP, whose Ministers co-operate in every way except attendance."
Yet today, Mr Trimble will be putting pressure on the two governments to brandish the threat of removing Sinn Féin's Ministers from the Executive, on the grounds that the IRA is in breach of its ceasefire.
The UUP leader is under pressure from many of his own members, who would like to see the provisions for cross-party voting in the Assembly changed, so that a straight unionist majority could oust Sinn Féin.
This won't happen, of course. The Irish Government wouldn't wear it. Anyway, why would Tony Blair want to endanger the agreement, which he is able to hold up as an example of his own peacemaking skills to, among others, the US President?
What both governments do accept is that there has been a serious erosion of confidence in the agreement among the unionist community. This manifests itself in the most dangerous way at the level of loyalist paramilitary groups.
It has been tragically obvious for a long time now that the Protestant working class feels itself to be leaderless and utterly disconnected from any involvement in the kind of politics which has brought such benefits to its Catholic neighbours. At this distance, it is easy to see that the failure to come up with a voting system which would give a credible political voice to this loyalist underclass has been the major flaw of the agreement.
This has been one of the factors which has fed anger in the broader unionist community. Its members are affronted by what it sees as the emergence of a "mafia society" in which paramilitary groups control the streets and the rackets. They particularly resent the fact that both governments insist the Provisional IRA's ceasefire is intact.
It is this problem which today's talks at Hillsborough will seek to address. The British government has already made serious efforts to reassure the unionist community. The Northern Ireland Secretary, John Reid, keeps hammering away at the need for nationalists to recognise unionist fears. That, presumably, is why he decided to include Johnny Adair in his recent meeting with loyalist community leaders. He was right to do so. If the UDA leader can reinvent himself as a community worker, as so many on the Republican side have done, it will be a big step forward for the entire community. If he can get elected to the assembly in next year's elections, that will be even better.
There have been important signals in recent weeks that the Sinn Féin leadership recognises it has a crucial part to play in dealing with the problem of unionist alienation. Gerry Adams and Mitchel McLaughlin have been forthright in calling for an end to the involvement of Republican activists in street violence. Many unionists will say they are still evasive about the IRA's activities in Colombia etc, but such comments fail to recognise that Adams and his supporters still face difficulties on that front and are also vulnerable to defections among their own grassroots to dissident groups. Nobody ever thought that persuading the IRA to take voluntary retirement was going to be easy.
That is why Alex Maskey's decision, as Lord Mayor of Belfast, to lay a laurel wreath in memory of all those who died at the Battle of the Somme was so important. The fact that he was accompanied by all Sinn Féin's representatives on the city council underlines its significance. This was a difficult and brave step for Sinn Féin, not because of those who died in that ghastly bloodbath (many of whom were Catholics) but because of the associations the British army still has for most northern nationalists. As Mr Maskey remarked, in the course of a long and somewhat tortuous speech, nobody ever suggests that unionist politicians should attend the annual commemoration of the Easter Rising. That is a task for another day.
Perhaps we shall yet see Johnny Adair at Bodenstown.