A strategy has been put in place by President Clinton, Mr Tony Blair and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to confront the decommissioning impasse in the 12 days leading up to Good Friday.
It was put in place in Washington and nobody, not even the Taoiseach at his most optimistic, can promise that it will succeed.
From what could be gleaned from US and Irish sources, it would appear that the first phase was put into effect during the St Patrick's Day meetings between Northern leaders and Mr Clinton in Washington last week.
The second phase, arguably the most important, will be addressed this week.
The final phase, involving the hoped-for solution to the relationship between the establishment of the Northern executive and decommissioning, could require the presence of the British Prime Minister and Mr Ahern for day-and-night talks in Belfast in a final bid to meet the deadline of April 2nd.
The strategy, which carries enormous political risks for Mr Ahern and Mr Blair, Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble and Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams, as well as the other pro-agreement parties, could make or break the Belfast Agreement at a time of increased security tensions.
It is a measure of the depth of the stalemate in Northern politics that Mr Ahern believes all leaders are genuinely prepared to try the strategy.
Over a week the most intense pressure was placed on Northern leaders not to let the agreement fail.
It began with Mr George Mitchell, chairman of the talks, and who brokered the agreement almost a year ago, saying in New York on Monday night that history would have forgiven them if they had failed to reach agreement last year; but history would never forgive them if they failed to implement that agreement.
Mr Clinton was careful in his speech at the shamrock ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House on St Patrick's Day. However, as the Taoiseach said afterwards, the President didn't pull his punches when he held one-to-one meetings with the leaders well into the evening.
Mr Clinton's strategy was to concentrate on the two leaders who are bogged down on decommissioning, the First Minister, Mr Trimble, and Mr Adams.
While he met all of the leaders that day, he unusually met Mr Trimble for 45 minutes and Mr Adams for an hour. He also used his offices to force an unscheduled meeting between Mr Adams and Mr Trimble.
St Patrick's evening at the White House was crowned with an impassioned speech from Mr Mitchell who again confronted the one remaining obstacle to implementing the full agreement.
Having received the Medal of Freedom from the President, the highest US civic honour, he invited the Northern leaders to stand in their places. They received a standing ovation from the assembled guests.
He went on to repeat his New York lines about their place in history before telling them that, unlike any other place that he knew well, politics in Northern Ireland was about life and death.
The Dublin delegation left Washington convinced that the most difficult problem which has plagued all phases of the peace process had been isolated. It was decommissioning. It concerns Mr Adams and Mr Trimble.
The Taoiseach was saying there was no use in "parking or stalling" the problem any longer. That, he added, would be a reversal.
The second phase of the strategy to surmount the decommissioning difficulty will be addressed this week. It is all about finding out the real bottom lines of Mr Trimble and Mr Adams so that work can commence, in the final week, on a solution which will be credible to both sides.
Mr Trimble has stated that he needs actual decommissioning before he can move to allow the executive to be established.
Mr Adams has been adamant that he cannot deliver decommissioning as a precondition to the formation of the executive.
In between the lines, however, some small signs of movement are evident. Mr Trimble began to flesh out his position for Mr Adams in Washington. Mr Adams, for his part, has stated that he wants Mr Trimble "in the loop when I stretch the republican constituency once again".
As Mr Ahern prepares to meet Mr Blair over three days at the EU summit in Berlin this week, the tortuous task of teasing out the real political positions of Mr Trimble and Mr Adams will intensify. Like this time last year, the work will probably be assisted by next Friday week's deadline.
Sources close to Mr Ahern said, however, that it was his judgement that some actual decommissioning would be required before the Northern executive, the North-South dimension and other British-Irish institutions could be established.