Three weeks after the suspension of the Northern Ireland institutions, there is a deepening sense of political paralysis around the peace process. If those with primary responsibility for getting things back on the rails do not begin to do so swiftly there is every possibility that the progress towards normality which has been secured over the past decade will be lost for many years to come, perhaps for ever.
There is bitterness and bewilderment among the parties which supported the Belfast Agreement in the Assembly and which formed the backbone of the short-lived Executive. However regrettable this may be, it is not difficult to understand. But the responsibility for steadying affairs and for finding a way forward is first and foremost that of the two governments and in particular the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister, working together. There has been little evidence of any such sense of shared priority since their discussions in Downing Street two weeks ago.
The Belfast Agreement is not the property of either the Provisionals or the Ulster Unionists to be torn up and cast aside - whoever one chooses to blame for the crisis. It is the settlement approved at the ballot box by the great majority of the people living on this island. The two governments are the custodians of the Agreement and it is the responsibility of those who lead the governments to deliver its benefits to the people who voted for it.
Mr Blair has political problems which he did not have two years ago. Mr Ahern has his own difficulties. But they should now be visibly and jointly re-stating their commitment to the Agreement, confirming the inviolability of democratic principles and pledging themselves together to finding an early way back to the re-establishment of the institutions. Instead a vacuum has been left, obliging the adversaries on the ground to set out their own agendas. Mr Gerry Adams speaks of the Agreement as being in "tatters" and of republicans going back to the streets. Ulster Unionists who risked all by entering the Executive with the IRA's political representatives are on the defensive against their hardliners.
It has been left to the SDLP's Mr Mark Durkan and to the leader of the Alliance party, Mr Sean Neeson, to spell out the sort of steps which should taken at this time by the two governments. Alliance has set out a six-point programme which would begin with the pro-Agreement parties collectively restating their commitment to the full implementation of the Agreement. Mr Durkan, correctly, identified the initiative for such a declaration as having to come from the two governments. In the present climate, weeks and days can be important. The longer the vacuum of activity is allowed to persist, the deeper will each side retreat into traditional mindsets. Those who have sought to take the middle ground will be weakened while the advocates of retrenchment will gain in influence and credibility. With the advent of the marching season now within measurable distance, tribal passions will be more readily inflamed. The conditions will be right for violence and the threat of violence to thrive once more.
The Taoiseach has said he sees little point in initiating discussions without an indication that there will be responsiveness. Such concerns are understandable. But there is also an inescapable burden of leadership and the line between proper caution and dangerous inactivity is a thin one. Mr Ahern and Mr Blair carry the duty of seeing the Agreement implemented. Tentative explorations among the parties are under way and it is possible that St Patrick's Day in Washington may see some attempts at mending fences. But the two leaders must make it clear to all concerned, before the permafrost of mistrust hardens, that the Agreement is still the only way forward.