A review of the Good Friday agreement by the two governments may be the only way of ensuring that it survives, maintains Dennis Kennedy.
Gerry Moriarty, introducing last week's series on the unionist "mindset" (January 13th), wrote that it was difficult to explain the current unionist malaise. Brian Feeney's article (January 16th) may have provided a stark explanation.
Coming from the pen of one of the best informed and most articulate of nationalist academics, it was a catalogue of sweeping generalisations and misrepresentations that might prompt anyone, unionist or not, to despair of any meeting of minds.
Dr Feeney was right when he wrote that the reason a majority of unionists do not support the Belfast Agreement is that they do not like its "out-working". But much of what followed must be questioned in terms of the language used and historical assertion.
He said unionists do not support the agreement because it removes "the special position of unionism" and places it on an equal footing with nationalism.
What was this special position? Unionists have not held political power since 1972. Arguably si nce 1985, as a result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and their refusal to work within it, they have had less influence on government policy than have nationalists with access via Dublin.
Local authorities have long had little power. Economic decline and changing circumstances have taken control of the local economy out of unionist hands. So in what way has the agreement downgraded unionism to a position of equality with nationalism? The very broad-brush analysis of the history of unionism is, at the very least, misleading.
The Ulster Unionist struggle from the mid-19th century was not to avoid living on equal political terms with the rest of the people of the island. In what way were they living on unequal political terms? It was to resist constitutional change which they believed would immerse them in a Catholic-dominated and possibly Gaelic state, leaving them on less than equal terms with the majority.
Northern Ireland was not devised as the biggest area unionists could dominate; it was devised as an area within which unionists would be a sufficient majority to ensure constitutional stability.
Unionists did totally dominate that area politically for half a century, but the circumstances in which that came about are complex and owe perhaps as much to the nationalist refusal to accept the constitutional settlement as to any unionist desire to dominate.
Unionism, or a significant section of it, came to terms long ago with the fact that their best hope of security lay in sharing power with nationalists and guaranteeing equality of treatment.
Brian Faulkner knew it (the 1974 Executive was brought down over the Dublin connection, not power-sharing). Power-sharing with nationalists was not resisted by unionists in the negotiation of the Belfast Agreement, nor were the provisions relating to equality and human rights. And most unionists voted for the agreement.
Why more unionists now reject the agreement has a lot to do with the way it has been implemented. Some of the answers are obvious:
Sinn Fein in government with still only one secret IRA token act of decommissioning on IRA terms, and with the IRA still in business.
Terrorist prisoners released while their paramilitary gangs remain armed and active.
Sectarianism rampant and communal divisions growing, not decreasing.
Symbols of the UK state deemed unacceptable, even though under the consent principle all parties to the agreement accept the legitimacy of the United Kingdom.
To these might be added John O'Farrell's (January 18th) point about the imbalance North and South in implementation of some aspects of the agreement, not least in the refusal to contemplate a place for Sinn Féin in government in Dublin.
Nor is it as obvious to all as it is to Brian Feeney that Irish nationalism has replaced the demand for territorial unity with acceptance of legally guaranteed rights for Irish people (in the UK).
The main nationalist parties retain territorial unity as their goal, Sinn Féin defining its key objective as an end to partition. The Irish Constitution still asserts that it is the firm will of the Irish nation to achieve a united Ireland. Taking a contrary view does not make unionists irredentist nationalists. The threat to the agreement posed by the Stormont election next year does not stem from any alleged unionist Herrenvolk mentality, but from the fact that the agreement now being implemented is not the one many unionists, and others, voted for; nor the one that Mr Blair and his government sold to the voters in 1998.
Some elements of unionism would no doubt reject any agreement, but they are not the real problem. By resolutely seeking to implement the agreement he signed, David Trimble, under constant pressure from London and Dublin, has helped impale unionism, and the rest of us, on the pro and anti-agreement divide.
The best way to get off that divide is to admit that the agreement is not producing results, that there are serious problems with its implementation and that, as a result, it is in danger of losing the support of the majority and therefore of collapsing.
Dr Reid seemed to imply as much in his Liverpool speech. But the responsiblity for doing something about it is more his than David Trimble's. Surely it is time for the two governments to stop bleating that there is no alternative. They do not have to ditch the agreement, but they can certainly embark on a genuine review of its implementation, which may be the only way of ensuring its survival.
Dennis Kennedy is a historian and lecturer in European studies at Queen's University Belfast