As Tony Blair continues his Irish visit, Washington sources say the current impasse in Northern Ireland has begun to worry President Clinton. They say a US intervention to try and help overcome the decommissioning problem may not be far away.

While the Blair visit may well spur progress on the cross-Border bodies and the scope and number of the fledgling government departments, decommissioning is likely to remain as the Sword of Damocles over the entire process. It is this toughest nut that the Americans now seek to help crack.

At various times in the peace process the US has taken a vital hand. Without the Adams visa in February 1994 there would have been no IRA ceasefire that year. Without President Clinton's first visit to Ireland in December 1995 there would have been no agreement on the international body set up to deal with decommissioning.

When the talks proper started, Senator George Mitchell, almost single-handedly at times, ensured they got beyond the bickering stage. Without the President's midnight interventions during Holy Week, it is doubtful if there would have been a Good Friday agreement.

The White House and Irish-Americans are now growing increasingly concerned about the continued impasse. US interventions are always carefully weighed and balanced. Clinton has an extraordinary political instinct for when the moment is right that is probably unsurpassed in the modern era. He has yet to put a foot wrong on Ireland.

The signals from the White House just this past week are that the time may again have arrived. One White House staffer went on the record as saying that the recently missed deadline on the formation of the shadow executive "would be the last deadline missed in this process" if the President had anything to do with it. Thus Tony Blair's progress, or lack of it, in Ireland this week will be closely watched in Washington.

Some Irish-Americans are seeking to replace the departed George Mitchell with another high-powered Clinton envoy who could bring a new focus to bear on the decommissioning issue. It must be remembered that Mitchell's original appointment occurred after such pressure from Irish-Americans on the President to appoint a peace envoy.

If the decommissioning issue was left right now to the Americans they would likely seek to solve it by going back to first principles and pointing out that Senator Mitchell, with the agreement of all the parties, set up the de Chastelain commission to deal with this very issue.

The second step, they believe, is that the body should now make its report and the governments and parties should act on it in concert. The American sense is that de Chastelain can now report co-operation with his commission from all paramilitary groups.

The third step in that event is that the IRA should also issue a statement which drops the word "never" on decommissioning and which holds out the opportunity for it to happen in the context of a satisfactory resolution of all the issues contained in the agreement.

Perhaps a way could also be found for Gen de Chastelain to vouch that, as far as he can adjudicate given specific information, the weapons are "out of commission," i.e. decommissioned, as has been suggested. Then the parties should all move on.

Americans believe the IRA could be able to live with the above and that it also allows David Trimble room to report solid practical progress on the issue to his own party. Such a scenario is their most optimistic view.

On the pessimistic side what Americans fear most is that some time early in the new year the two governments, badgered by Trimble, could be prepared to bet all the progress of the peace process, the ceasefires, the Good Friday agreement, the US presidential involvement etc on a "double or nothing" chance of actually gaining some decommissioning from the IRA. All the information is that that would be a terrible mistake and a bad losing bet.

Americans do not see decommissioning as central to the peace process or the future of Ireland in the way that the IRA and loyalist ceasefires or the Good Friday agreement are. Yet they fear those massive achievements could be risked for a handful of dust.

Decommissioning right now remains an unreachable goal. If for argument's sake, the IRA was to hand over some five tonnes of weaponry or Semtex, the next problem would surely be that what was handed in was not enough and more was needed.

The hardline opponents of Trimble, and most probably Trimble himself, could immediately raise the stakes and point out that the IRA still has 95 tonnes or so of explosives and weapons and that they must be handed in, too, for progress to be made.

In such a scenario we could have the spectacle of the British Prime Minister arguing in parliament that it is OK to negotiate while the IRA hangs on to 90 tonnes but not to 95 tonnes of weaponry. The more the actuality of decommissioning is debated, the further the wagon wheels of the agreement sink into the quicksand.

The fundamental point, of course, is that the issue is not really about decommissioning at all. It is about trust for some unionists, and for others it is about finding a way to block the agreement however they can.

Billy Hutchinson, of the Progressive Unionist Party, said it best in a recent interview on TV3 when he commented: "The reality is that Mr Trimble and others do not want the IRA, in the shape of Sinn Fein, sitting in a Northern Ireland government. They should be honest about that. The difficulty is that if they were honest they would accept they are in breach of the agreement," he said.

So we are all persisting in a fantasy that all this is really about decommissioning. It is not. The more the fantasy is indulged, the worse the reality is bound to be.

Already some British officials and unionists, including Trimble, are muttering about using the releases of remaining republican prisoners as leverage to force the IRA to decommission, a real prescription for disaster.

The only reality check needed for the governments should be the view of people on the ground in nationalist areas. It remains strangely underreported that there is absolutely no appetite in nationalist areas for the IRA to hand over weapons.

The IRA statement of last April which vowed to "never again" leave nationalist areas defenceless is taken very seriously in those neighbourhoods, at a time when the loyalist hit squads are operating once more.

In addition, the fact that the UVF has indicated it would not decommission even if the IRA did and that some in the UDA are making threatening noises about breaking their own ceasefire, adds further to the belief on the ground that any decommissioning would be a disastrous move for the IRA.

It would also have the effect of moving the issue from a symbolic level to a very real power struggle within their movement if it were attempted, something some republicans believe is the real British agenda anyway. "Real IRA" Mark 2 anyone?

The fact is that any Sinn Fein leader of stature going to his community, never mind the IRA, on the question of handing over arms at present would be laughed out of court if he pressed it seriously.

Thus Gerry Adams's call on Monday for an "urgently needed joint initiative" by the two governments was no kite-flying exercise. Americans certainly believe the process is on the verge of another crisis, and the White House itself is rapidly moving to that position.

The reality is that by refusing to implement the agreement and seemingly holding David Trimble's concerns as paramount in all negotiations, the British and indeed the Irish Government are sending a very dangerous message.

The IRA ceasefires were particularly influenced by the British acceptance that seeking a united Ireland was as legitimate an aspiration as maintaining the Union. The seemingly sole focus on keeping David Trimble happy undermines the basic notion of equality of aspiration.

All of this time-wasting on decommissioning has obscured the reality that it will become necessary for David Trimble to finally reach the "back-me-or-sack-me" moment within his own party which he has put off all these months. It is a defining moment which men like John Hume and Gerry Adams reached with their own supporters long ago and successfully surmounted.

Perhaps unionism has moved as far as it can, perhaps not, but the issue needs to be resolved and can only be by Trimble alone.

Trying to endlessly prop up Trimble as the decommissioning argument seeks to do is merely another recipe for disaster in a state which has seen far too many of them. It may ultimately save Trimble but lose the agreement. There is far too much at stake now to have it as the defining issue. It is time the two governments woke up to that fact. The Americans already have.

Niall O'Dowd is publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper in New York