It will be difficult, particularly for those outside Northern Ireland, to appreciate that the 275,000 people who voted against the Belfast Agreement, who have been painted by the press and media as evil, war-mongering dinosaurs, are in reality among the greatest supporters of a real and lasting peace, the most dedicated proponents of democratic politics and the strongest opponents of terrorism and the rewarding of its supporters.
You'd better hope I'm right because, if the media interpretation is accurate, 275,000 war-mongers could cause an awful lot of trouble. It may come as a great disappointment for the gullible souls who have believed the superficial propaganda of the last few months that nothing has really changed. The same problems exist. It's just that the obstacles have been pushed further down the track.
There has been much euphoria and back-slapping surrounding the passage of the agreement in the referendum but after intoxication comes the hangover.
Having overdosed on hype and indulging in froth and tinsel, the Yes campaigners now have the unenviable task of reconciling three different and conflicting Belfast Agreements sold by participants to their respective constituencies.
Even with the media manipulators in the Northern Ireland Office - who peeled off any vestige of impartiality and independence in order to campaign overtly in support of the agreement - the Yes men are in trouble. And it will take more than a U2 "extravaganza" to dig them out of it.
The government's game plan was to get the agreement through and hope for a politically and arithmetically satisfactory outcome to the Assembly election; then simply have a quick initial meeting of the new Assembly, immediately adjourn, and seek to leapfrog Drumcree. They hope the marching season and the subsequent welshing by the government on Tony Blair's pledges - which will be exposed when the Settlement Bill is published - will not be so grave as to scupper their plans.
They hope the passage of time and the process of gradualism will allow Trimble to progressively dilute and then ditch his pledges and allow him to enter government with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
From this fairytale beginning, Northern Ireland will delight in an orgy of peace and prosperity. That is the government's script, but reality may be very different.
Already the pledges which encouraged many unionists to vote for the agreement are crumbling. The promised linkage between actual decommissioning and the release of unrepentant terrorists is not, as was promised by Mr Blair, in the legislation. Nor are the terrorist organisations required "to give up violence for good." Mr Blair's pledge that the RUC would be preserved sits awkwardly with the exposure of his Secretary of State, Dr Mowlam, seeking to personally gain the approval of an on-the-run republican for the composition of a commission that will determine the future of that force.
These broken pledges will be followed by others. There will be great consternation among the supporters of the agreement that Mr Trimble refused the first fence. Having signed up to the Declaration of participants that "We pledge that we will, in good faith, work to ensure the success of each and every one of the arrangements to be established under this Agreement", he voted against the implementation of the first of the arrangements established under the agreement. Mr Trimble's vote firstly was a vote on the second reading of the Bill, which is a vote for or against the principle and not the detail. Mr Trimble therefore voted against the principle of one of the arrangements he was pledged to establish.
Yet more worrying for the government will be his unpredictability, his insecurity and vulnerability, as well as the degree to which he is being isolated even within his own party.
I envisage that in the new Assembly the Democratic Unionists will be joined by other agreement sceptics, a significant number of whom will be Ulster Unionist Party members. Mr Trimble will neither be able to see implemented the type of agreement he retailed to the public - nor will he be able to secure the necessary numbers to off-load his commitments to the government.
When that moment comes, the government will have to make a choice of radically altering the nature and scope of the Belfast Agreement in order to bring the majority of unionists on board or of scrapping the process and starting afresh. The former is the more likely government option, but for the first time unionists will be in the driving seat and it will not be subservient and compliant Trimbleites with whom it will have to deal.
Yet it may be surprised (though it should not be) that the obstacle that will be placed in its path will not be any lack of enthusiasm for leaving behind the sterile and confrontational politics and of working together in the greater interest of our whole community, but rather that those who are entitled to be in such a democratic partnership should not include those still holding on to, and from time to time using, the option of terrorism.
The other obstacle to be overcome is that unionists will not allow a conflicting principle of consent, whereby the government sets in place a process to unite Ireland and then tells the people of Northern Ireland that they have the power to control it. If consent can be given, it can be withheld, and it can be withheld at every stage of the process and not simply after the government has set it on course.
If, however, my predictions are wrong and Mr Trimble succeeds in turning his coat inside out without being brought down by his party, and manages to push the All-Ireland Deal through the Assembly, then the opposition of my colleagues (unlike the IRA when they don't get their way) will be constitutional, peaceful, legitimate and democratic. But it will nonetheless be a robust opposition to the rewarding of terrorism and the dissolving of the Union.
Having run a local authority in a manner that has secured control for the past 16 years and placed it as a role model for local government in Northern Ireland with the lowest rates, highest-quality facilities and best services, I could expect to benefit more than most from the opportunity and challenge of government in Northern Ireland. Yet I will not be a party to the unworkable and inherently destructive system enunciated in the agreement which, apart from its practical inefficiency, requires unionists to betray their unionism and toss out every moral scruple they ever had about the evil of pandering to terrorism.
Sooner, rather than later, the gloss of the agreement will dull, and it will not seem such a "Good Friday" after all. When that day comes, I trust that both the London and Dublin governments, who have lectured the No camp about the necessity to respect the democratic outcome of a referendum, will recognise that should the people vary their opinion on these matters, a new majority opinion must be given no less respect that one with which the "two governments" agreed.
Peter Robinson is deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party