Most Americans interested in Ireland remain supportive of the peace process, but express impatience that it has been dragged out so long, says Martin Mansergh
Its capacity to retain attention by staying in suspense is on the wane. A new book, American Ally by Con Coughlin, claims that, when the administration changed in January 2001, "Washington privately informed Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief-of-staff, that they had little interest in continuing US involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process, which they considered an exclusively British affair".
That assessment is over-simplistic, as special envoys appointed by President Bush such as Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss have continued to provide valuable input.
But Northern Ireland will not figure large in any account of Bush's term of office, whereas Bill Clinton wrote in his autobiography: "Good Friday, April 10, was one of the happiest days of my presidency."
Those who have participated in shaping historic events inevitably have a greater ownership of them. It is difficult to imagine Gordon Brown or David Cameron devoting the time to Northern Ireland that Tony Blair has, particularly if it is not progressing. Likewise here, it would be hard indefinitely to keep present issues in the Northern Ireland peace process, if still unresolved, as high up the political agenda.
Understandably, both Taoiseach and prime minister would like to crown almost 10 years of productive partnership with full implementation of the Belfast Agreement. It is in any case high time, given that objective conditions should be in place to allow much greater stability than in the past.
While neither the UUP nor the SDLP are any longer in pole positions within their communities, they are the parties that principally created the Belfast Agreement and forged the necessary compromises.
While adopting an opposition mode may have its attractions, there is a better case for their participation in the Executive in its formative stages.
It is in Sinn Féin's interest to contribute to stable working institutions, if they are to create the trust they need to consolidate or, in the case of the South, enlarge their electoral support. The latest International Monitoring Commission report suggests a virtual cessation of IRA activity, as well as noting moves to disassociate Sinn Féin and the IRA from criminal activity undertaken by a small number of members or former members.
While the large majority of murders and serious assaults in the past four years have been carried out by loyalists, the high profile murders of Robert McCartney and Denis Donaldson, the latter unattributed, is bound still to induce a certain wariness.
While loyalism is not a factor with regard to re-forming the political institutions, continued paramilitary activity can only demoralise and weaken their community. The Rev Brian Kennaway's book The Orange Order: A Tradition Betrayed, launched significantly by Lord Trimble, attempts to address another source of demoralisation.
There is no danger that the two governments will act unconstitutionally outside the Belfast Agreement. Joint stewardship of the peace process, referred to in the recent statement by the Taoiseach and the prime minister, is not code for joint authority or joint sovereignty, but simply a description of responsibilities under the existing relationship, in the absence of an Assembly. North-South co-operation cannot be run on a care and maintenance basis indefinitely. A more proactive role by the two governments, where economic interests on both sides of the Border require it, would be an inevitable consequence of no agreement.
The attendance of a heavyweight and confident DUP delegation at the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body meeting in Killarney was an encouraging sign of forward engagement. By attending, albeit not yet as members, the DUP were doing what the UUP should have done long ago, there being no good ideological reasons for abstention. There has been no rioting on the Shankill Road as a result.
Crude pressurisation rarely works on any northern party. Yet both governments do have a responsibility to bring matters to a conclusion this year. If the realists were to have been believed, no initiative undertaken over the past 20 years was capable of success. Progress has always been made in the teeth of unfavourable odds.
The main thing expected of the IRA is that they keep their commitments. Formal disbandment at this stage might create an opening helpful to dissidents. It would not solve any real unionist problem. Policing is an area, where additional commitment is needed, but is only likely within an overall resolution of remaining difficulties.
It may not be as easy next time to contrive a plausible but unacceptable demand, such as decommissioning photos, that will derail a new understanding when it is almost reached. Hitherto, and this has been one of the dynamics throughout the process, leading parties have been reluctant to stay in a position where they are widely perceived as the obstacle to political progress. A unionist decision to reject power-sharing would send quite negative messages about Northern Ireland's long-term viability as a political entity, and would do nothing to halt the slow erosion of their position.
There is no precipitation about a royal visit. Though it would be an event, its significance should not be exaggerated one way or the other. When Ireland was a kingdom or part of one, only rare visits were made, usually at the head of an army. Having read Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, George III exclaimed: "What, what - I know something now of my Irish subjects." His successors became more assiduous.
There is little protest at Elizabeth II's visits to Northern Ireland, so the logic of a 1900-style protest in the Republic will escape most people. It should cost little to greet and give courteous hospitality to the first British monarch in 800 years never to have reigned over most of this country, and who by universal accord has carried out her duties with unfailing dignity for well over half a century.
Prolonging a state of exception is not the best way now to make further progress.