Most of the political players in the search for a settlement in the North will be packing their bags over coming days for Washington DC. On Friday, President Clinton will host his last presidential St Patrick's Day reception. It may be an opportunity, hopefully, for some important political work to be done. And it will be the last time - for the forseeable future - that the incumbent of the White House will be someone who is willing to devote such energy and effort to Ireland.
This time last year the gathering at the White House focused largely on Mr David Trimble and Mr Gerry Adams, even then locked into seemingly irreconcilable positions on the decommissioning issue. Mr Adams envisaged that republicans and unionists would "jump together" - a phrase which Mr Trimble later made his own. Mr Adams, moreover, promised to "stretch the republican constituency". The prospect of progress seemed real. A year later, hopes have been most cruelly dashed. The possibilities of a full implementation of the Belfast Agreement are very much more remote than they were 12 months ago.
That matters are now deadlocked - a Mexican standoff, in Mr Peter Mandelson's phrase - is entirely to the satisfaction of some. Mr Trimble's hardliners are happy to have Sinn Fein - and the SDLP - out of office. They see themselves proven correct and the party leader's poor judgment exposed by his act of faith in entering government with Sinn Fein. Extreme republicans can claim that the political pathway, championed by the Sinn Fein leadership, leads nowhere. And those who remain committed to the Agreement - notably the two governments - appear to be paralysed and struck dumb as to what should be done next.
Ms Liz O'Donnell has drawn fire from British and unionist sources for suggesting that the May deadline for decommissioning will have to be redrawn. And the Taoiseach has been criticised for appearing to equate the IRA and the security forces in his ardfheis speech. But given that the way forward appears to be irretrievably blocked by the decommissioning issue, it is incumbent on the political leadership to seek a way around it. If a way can be found, other than decommissioning, which can clearly and unequivocally commit the republican movement to peaceful methods alone, then it must be identified and explored.
The possibility of the IRA redefining itself, effectively disbanding as a "military" organisation and committing itself to the political path, has been aired in some informed circles. This could supersede the need for decommissioning. It has always been understood that guns can be replaced and that bombs can be made from farmyard chemicals. Decommissioning has been identified as essential in the context of the Agreement as signifying a permanent commitment to peaceful methods.
It can be argued that the Belfast Agreement makes no provision for any concept such as disbandment and that its requirement for decommissioning remains, having been underpinned in the referendums of May 1998. But neither does the Agreement preclude the sort of process which might be embarked upon with new language and new methods - but with the same objective of securing an unambiguous commitment to lasting peace and to democratic methods. With imagination and effort, in between the speeches, the toasts and the canapes, those who meet in Washington next week might well find common ground for exploration. Not all the possibilities have been exhausted.