The eyes of the world will focus on Belfast this evening when President George Bush and Mr Tony Blair meet in Hillsborough Castle for a two-day summit at this critical juncture in the war on Iraq.
There are hard decisions to be made which will have the most fundamental impact on the international order. They relate primarily to the political and military strategy to be employed in concluding the war and the complexion of post-war Iraq. The two leaders will also cover the Middle East. And they will devote a considerable amount of time to the current state of the peace process in Northern Ireland in the run-up to the fifth anniversary of the Belfast Agreement next Thursday.
It is highly unlikely that the British Prime Minister could have convinced the President of the United States to meet in Belfast in the middle of the war if the prospects of reaching an arrangement to bring "acts of completion" to the peace process were remote. It is unlikely also that President Bush and Mr Blair would settle for acts of exhortation and encouragement at this eleventh hour. It is presumed, rightly or wrongly, that the main parties, principally Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionist Party, can complete a deal. Otherwise, why would Mr Bush and Mr Blair expend such capital on a failure?
Joined by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the two leaders will meet all of the pro-agreement parties tomorrow to make their final assessment of the "shared understanding" on the way forward to be published by the British and Irish governments on Thursday. They are seeking to bring completion, once and for all, to all issues outstanding under the agreement: decommissioning, policing, demilitarisation and the stability of the political institutions.
The debates at the recent Sinn Féin Ardfheis signalled that the end-game for the IRA could be in sight. The party president, Mr Gerry Adams, said that he could envisage life without the IRA. There was less certainty from the ardfheis about the question of Sinn Féin joining the Northern Ireland Policing Board.
The indications that the two governments' shared understanding could lead to acts of completion on all issues , with the single exception of policing, is worrying. Surely the quid pro quo for re-entry to the Northern Executive, at this stage, is that Sinn Féin will sign up to policing to assert the integrity of the democratic process.
Mr Blair raised the bar of acts of completion all around in this series of negotiations. They are coming to a conclusion this week. Time is running out. The UUP leader, Mr Trimble, will need to be convinced of an act of completion by the IRA within hours or days of the publication of Thursday's document.
He must put the proposals before the Ulster Unionist Council on April 26th if all pro-agreement parties are to sing from the same hymn sheet of the Belfast Agreement in the Assembly elections scheduled for May 29th. The interventions by President Bush and Mr Blair could be crucial to making this happen.