Tony Blair has not spelt out the implications of missing the "absolute" deadline for establishing a Northern executive and devolving powers to new institutions by June 30th, so this week Mr Seamus Mallon did it for him.
The "positive engagement" of Mr Blair, Mr Ahern and President Clinton would have been spurned, the SDLP man wrote in The Irish Times. It would mean an end to the Assembly, the North-South Ministerial Council and "the basic principles of the agreement". Mr Mallon did not allude to the fact that, under this scenario, the British-Irish Council would also be aborted, but that body has always been seen as a sop to unionists.
Mr Mallon went on to make some implicit criticisms of other participants in the process. When he decried "unilateral letters of comfort, together with secret deals and understandings", he can only have been referring to the various efforts by Downing Street over the past year to insulate David Trimble from the vengeance of the dissidents he so cleverly outmanoeuvred on Good Friday 1998.
When Mr Mallon insists that political parties must ensure their "key participants" are involved and available throughout the forthcoming negotiations, he can only mean the Ulster Unionists, who have a tendency to vary the membership of their negotiating teams and whose leader is becoming almost as well-travelled as John Hume.
The most interesting point Mr Mallon makes is that the two governments must "recognise that their role and responsibility go far beyond that of honest broker". Here he must be primarily referring to the British, for it is they who have the power to trigger the d'Hondt process for allocating ministries in the Stormont Assembly.
Dr Mo Mowlam, it is believed, would have no problem "triggering d'Hondt" at any time. The sooner the better. The hesitation has come at prime ministerial level, according to senior sources. But Mr Blair stopped second-guessing himself at Downing Street on May 14th when he pushed through a document which veered away from the Hillsborough approach of seeking prior decommissioning from the IRA in favour of a strategy which put the unionists under pressure to give ground.
The indications this week were that the victor of Kosovo, who went further out on a limb than any other government head in support of NATO's high-risk strategy, was not disposed to be faced down by unionists hankering after past glories and smitten by a bad case of political nerves.
Mr Blair was in intensive consultations with Mr Trimble amid reports that Mr John Taylor was using his considerable political weight to rock the unionist boat. There was a quiet but qualified confidence in nationalist circles that Blair would "do the business", that he did indeed feel the hand of history upon his shoulder and was deploying his most senior officials to ensure that devolution to Northern Ireland occurred at the same time as Scotland and Wales.
No prime minister since Gladstone has been so committed or so active in seeking to achieve a just and equitable resolution of the Northern conflict. The question is, can he succeed or will the twin forces of unionist apathy and fear of the future hobble his efforts to ensure that the institutions agreed on Good Friday are finally established?
The political poker-game is being played for high stakes, and any player who is bluffing will be found out in the end. The IRA is not bluffing when it says it will not decommission to facilitate the formation of an executive. Seamus Mallon's Irish Times article is the latest indication that constitutional politicians have taken this lesson to heart. Mr Blair may have been bluffing when he declared the June 30th deadline absolute, but the current "mood music" suggests that he is not.
There has long been a school of thought on the nationalist side which believed the unionists were the real bluffers, threatening like King Lear that they "will do such things - what they are yet I know not - but they shall be the terrors of the earth".
The loyalist workers' strike which brought down the 1974 power-sharing executive showed the dangers of misreading the unionist mood but, this time around, key loyalist figures are supporting the peace process, and the dissident unionist mood, as displayed in this week's European election, seems to be one of apathy and resignation rather than the righteous anger required if the train of history is to be derailed a second time.
The coming week is critical. If Monday's election count sees the UUP's Jim Nicholson hold on to his European Parliament seat with a respectable tally of votes, it will be little thanks to key figures in his party who were either half-hearted or openly disloyal during the campaign. The collapse of the Nicholson vote could well precipitate an immediate leadership crisis in the UUP.
However, if a credible pro-agreement "spin" can be put on the results - John Hume topping the poll, Nicholson scoring over 100,000 first preferences, a mediocre showing by Robert McCartney, a strong performance from David Ervine - and if the UUP has not entirely disintegrated into warring factions, then there will probably be a strong move to trigger the d'Hondt procedure on Thursday or Friday.
The standing orders whereby potential ministers are named will be closely watched by all parties. Sinn Fein will be wary of anything that seems to give the UUP a veto on nominees taking office. Mr Trimble's people will require "safety-nets" so that they don't end up in government with Sinn Fein ministers who then turn around and say: "Decommissioning - what decommissioning?" Ideas involving a key role for the Assembly are under consideration as a way out of this impasse. a la Hillsborough", was how senior sources put it.
While Mr Blair has not stated explicitly that the salaries of Assembly members will be stopped if the June 30th deadline is missed, his credibility and standing would be undermined if members were not made to pay a price for their own political failures. The prospect of losing the trappings of power and returning to the political wilderness will not be an appetising one, even to some who were stridently opposed to the Good Friday pact.