The current impasse in the Northern Ireland peace process is being viewed in the US, both in the administration and Irish congressional circles, with concern but a surprising degree of equanimity.
A broadly common analysis sees the looming prospect of a resignation by the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, as another pothole on the road, albeit substantial, but not, definitely not, a crisis jeopardising the process or the Good Friday agreement.
That view, emphasising how far the process and the North have travelled despite concern that it could be moving into "uncharted waters", was being expressed by President George Bush's "point man" on Northern Ireland, Mr Richard Haass, on Monday following his first trip to the North last week. It echoed comments by congressional sources here following the one-day visit to the Hill on Thursday by the president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams.
The ingredients of a deal are all in circulation, there is no shortage of ideas about a package, but what is required are "political decisions" by all the parties to move forward, Mr Haass said.
For a man in the job barely two months, he speaks that strange language, "peace process", with remarkable fluency. Relaxed but careful, deliberately non-judgmental, Mr Haass, who met party leaders, representatives of the two governments and the head of the decommissioning body, Gen de Chastelain, while in the North, briefed journalists in his seventh floor office in the State Department, where he is also head of policy planning.
He said all parties needed to continue implementation of the Good Friday agreement "in full". That included progress from Sinn Fein and paramilitaries on arms decommissioning, police reform and "demilitarisation". "Decommissioning is one of the pieces of the puzzle, but not the only one," he said, arguing that the only way forward was a package of all three.
He admitted that the peace process was heading into potentially difficult "uncharted water" with the possible resignation of Mr Trimble, but he had received a clear impression from all those he met that although they were "uneasy" and "concerned", there was no sense of crisis, "no sense that we have passed a point where things cannot be retrieved politically". "There is no sense of the inevitability of a return to past violence," he said.
That analysis appears to be based on Mr Haass's contention, repeated by other administration sources, that while a majority of unionists may now be critical of the implementation of the agreement, they are not fundamentally opposed to it.
"One of the interesting phenomena of the last three years is the extent of comfort with devolution," he said.
"Yes, there is a lot of concern, a lot of criticism of the implementation of the agreement, but on the other hand they are participating in the institutions and the political process."
Speaking of the Bush administration's style, Mr Haass said it would adjust its tactics depending on the circumstances and denied that meant a hands-off approach - "Flexible on tactics, firm on principle", he insisted. He paid tribute to the contributions made by both former president Bill Clinton and Senator George Mitchell, but emphasised that the negotiating context now was a new framework and thus a different dynamic. `We're not looking to jump in to make a complex situation more complex," he insisted.
If the US felt it could assist in any way in getting the agreement fully implemented it would look at it, he said. He did not rule out, but declined to say whether he would recommend, a presidential intervention at this stage, despite hints from Mr Adams in a US paper last week that a direct appeal from the US President was difficult to ignore.
Mr Haass rejected the suggestion that the US should offer a particular helping hand to parties that had been squeezed in the recent elections. To do so would be to break with an essential even-handedness of approach that sought to recognise the democratic mandate of each player, he argued. "Our role is not to recalibrate Northern Ireland politics," he said.
At the same time, they would maintain close contact and attempt, "using old-fashioned persuasion", to urge each party to take the necessary and difficult political decisions required to move forward.
psmyth@irish-times.ie