Is the Belfast Agreement really in crisis and under immediate threat? The answer might seem self-evident, given the continued frenzy of negotiation in an effort to resolve - or, at any rate, advance in a convincing manner - the inter-connected decommissioning, demilitarisation and policing issues which have for so long threatened the accord.
The presence of the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister in Belfast today will signal some game finally in play in the roundtable format proposed by the SDLP. Given their "standby" state over recent weeks, however, few will believe it until Mr Ahern and Mr Blair finally touch down at Hillsborough. An outstanding feature of the current negotiation has been deadlines set and disregarded.
In assessing the likely outcome of any talks, moreover, it is worth recalling that the original deadline for this negotiation was President Bill Clinton's visit to Ireland last December.
Back-then the insistence was on a "big picture" deal - one which would see the SDLP and Sinn Fein endorse Northern Ireland's new Police Service, while the IRA agreed to concrete-over or otherwise decommission arms dumps. At that point, Dublin took the lead in arguing that nothing less would do to take the process over the immediate roadblock and beyond the next inevitable crisis - or break the developing cycle of quarterly challenges to Mr Trimble's position at the Ulster Unionist Council. The backdrop was the IRA's failure to engage with the Decommissioning Commission, Mr Trimble's decision to bar Sinn Fein from North/South meetings, and Mr Jeffrey Donaldson's apparent determination to force the arms issue again at the UUP's ruling body in January.
The attendant hope was that the Provisional IRA would see the sense of securing the agreement ahead of the looming general election, and might be prepared to "do it for Bill" in the dying days of his presidency.
It was not: nor has it shown itself amenable to the argument that the advent of the Bush presidency means that to drag out the negotiations is to see them concluded in inevitably less propitious circumstances. Republicans are notoriously good at sticking to their own agenda. A look at the changing agenda for this negotiation, moreover, may provide a further key to the likely nature and scope of any "breakthrough" at this point.
Some Irish sources may now imply that it is Mr Blair who has pushed too hard, too fast, with too much focus on the question of Mr Trimble's difficulties and requirements. Until comparatively recently, however, unattributable press briefings suggested growing Dublin confidence that the arms issue had effectively been dealt with and that the outstanding difficulty was actually policing.
British sources also suggest that the impatience with Sinn Fein now reportedly evident in sections of the Irish political establishment reflects Dublin's frustration and embarrassment at failure to deliver a deal it previously thought in the bag.
In any event, it has been intriguing in recent days to find senior SDLP figures echoing earlier (gently whispered) British complaints that Sinn Fein has actually been using the debate on policing to distract attention from the IRA's refusal to act on previous commitments to put weapons beyond use.
Which brings us to two questions currently exercising British ministers and officials as well as key members of the Trimble camp. Is Seamus Mallon preparing - with the backing of the Taoiseach and the Catholic hierarchy - to finally endorse the Police Service of Northern Ireland? And would such a fracturing of the "nationalist consensus" trigger further significant defections to dissident factions such as Continuity and the "Real IRA"?
The renewed British/Ulster Unionist focus on the first of these points arguably illustrates their truest assessment of the short-tomedium term prospects for the agreement. That assumption is that IRA decommissioning is not going to take place this side of the British general election, and that the agreement can survive at least until that point.
And the fact that the British are also sharply focused on the second question might suggest some clue as to the tenor of the Irish Government's approach, and the present direction of that debate on policing.
Trimble loyalists have no doubt that pro-agreement unionism would be fortified in the upcoming electoral battles if - in the assumed absence of any IRA decommissioning - constitutional nationalism asserted itself and backed the new policing disposition, leaving Sinn Fein isolated. And that impatience with Sinn Fein is apparently real enough in the Department of Foreign Affairs and elsewhere; few would seriously suggest the Taoiseach has profound misgivings of his own about the Police Act embodying the Patten reforms.
That said, usually reliable Irish sources seem convinced such unionist hopes will be dashed and that the poker-playing Mr Mallon will choose not to reveal his hand before polling day.
Hence the suggestion emanating from Irish sources last night that any Ahern/Blair-led summit will probably be a back-to-basics affair in search of a minimalist deal - this involving the IRA's re-engagement with Gen de Chastelain, the lifting of Mr Trimble's North/South fatwa on Sinn Fein ministers, and an ongoing negotiation on policing issues, with the Executive and other institutions functioning normally through the election period.
IN OTHER words a holding deal, taking the parties back to last October when Mr Trimble deployed his North/South sanction against Sinn Fein to fight off a seemingly growing threat to his leadership.
But will that be enough? The calculation in the Trimble camp is that his position has steadily improved since last autumn. Mr Donaldson is thought to have made a profound miscalculation last October, when he rejected a deal which could have forced the UUP out of the Executive in January. The sanctions against Sinn Fein bought Mr Trimble time and averted the threatened resumption of the Ulster Unionist Council in January.
The Rev Martin Smyth apparently does not rule out a further challenge but foot-and-mouth feeds Trimble supporters' hopes that the UUC's annual meeting this month may have to be postponed - taking the party into the teeth of Westminster and council elections with no option but to band together and battle for collective survival.
Key Trimble strategists actually reckon the forthcoming elections may not be the disaster so widely predicted, while other dissident MPs privately admit they do not have the internal forces and are counting on the electorate to finish Mr Trimble off.
The British government is less sanguine about Mr Trimble's prospects than are some of his advisers, hence Mr Blair's push to the last for an all-purpose deal. However, if it is not forthcoming, it seems certain London will not move to a second suspension of the institutions unless convinced by Mr Trimble that there is no alternative.
And the over-arching factor of the moment surely is that Mr Trimble appears to have decided in suspension lies the path of self-fulfilling electoral ruin. Of course his party might yet confound him. But if Mr Trimble remains - as he appears - determined to fight the elections as serving First Minister, then Mr Ahern and Mr Blair might savour the prospect of at least an interim agreement and crisis postponed until the day after polling.
However if, as still seems inevitable, the overwhelming majority of pro-Union votes are cast for anti-agreement candidates, the crisis then may be less about decommissioning and policing than about democracy itself.
Frank Millar is London Editor