Only the foolishly optimistic take the view that the talks at Stormont Castle Buildings must inevitably lead on to a successful end in the form of an agreed settlement. That happy outcome must remain the primary objective of the talks process and with courage, compromise and good fortune it may yet be attained. But the participants have hardly begun their work. The core issues have yet to be addressed. How will the sovereignty of Northern Ireland be defined for the future? How will power be shared? What structures and relationships will exist between North and South?
If the process does fail however, history seems likely to record that this attempt at achieving a settlement was supported like no other. Yesterday's visit by Mr Tony Blair was not aimed at substantively altering the influences or forces around the negotiating table. But it gave tangible and visible evidence of Mr Blair's personal commitment to the process and his determination to drive it through to a conclusion.
Too much might be made of his meeting and handshake with the leaders of Sinn Fein. It was remarkable certainly, in that it marked the great distance travelled by the Provisional movement in the three months since the renewal of the IRA ceasefire. But it is not correct to liken it to 1921 when the then leadership of Sinn Fein met prime minister Lloyd George and his Cabinet. The relative status of Sinn Fein then and now as representatives of the Irish people bears no comparison.
Nonetheless it is difficult not to sympathise with mainstream unionists who are apprehensive and disquieted at the apparent normalising of relations between the leader of the British government and the organisation which has visited death and destruction on their community for more than 25 years. As Mr Steven King, an Ulster Unionist adviser, writes in this newspaper today, "the speed of events in recent months has been unsettling for many ordinary unionists . . . especially those . . . who have lost loved ones or been injured in the course of the Troubles. More deeply there is tangible unease about the future of Northern Ireland - Republic of Ireland relations".
Mr King - and his political masters in the Ulster Unionist Party - are looking to their annual conference in less than a fortnight's time. Mr David Trimble will come under renewed attack from certain predictable quarters. However, what must worry the leadership is not so much the extremist wing but the rank-and-file which increasingly feels that it is being asked to travel in the dark to an unknown destination.
Some of this is unavoidable. The talks themselves are not open to the media and though it comes hard to any newspaper to argue in favour of clandestine politics there are occasions when more progress can be made behind closed doors than in the open. But it is essential that all parties to the talks - and in particular the two governments - should realise that these are high-risk days for Mr Trimble and his colleagues. They need, and are entitled to, as much support as possible as they seek to bring the mainstream of their followers with them into unknown territory. Calls for transparency from Dublin on future policy towards Northern Ireland, such as those made by Mr King, are perhaps somewhat disingenuous. These are matters which will be put on the table in the course of negotiations. The unionists know that. They also know that when Mr Ray Burke and, later, Mr David Andrews intimated that a united Ireland is not on Dublin's agenda they were, consciously or otherwise, dampening nationalist expectations.