The editorials in some of the larger US newspapers have been critical of the IRA's withdrawal of its decommissioning proposals to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.
Under the title "Fidel's Irish Friends" the Washington Post said it was "increasingly clear who's to blame [for the North's fraying peace process].
"The IRA's excuse for withdrawing its disarmament offer is that the British government suspended Northern Ireland's power-sharing Assembly for one day.
"But Britain did this with the tacit support of the Irish Government and it did so because there was no better alternative . . .
"If the IRA cared about the peace process you might expect its political wing, Sinn Fein, to be working overtime on finding a way forward.
"But Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein's top man, is planning a trip to Latin America. He will visit Fidel Castro, a long-standing ally, and stop by in other undisclosed countries."
The paper said three Irishmen were arrested in Colombia and were facing charges of assisting that country's drug-trafficking terrorists in mastering explosives.
Remembering the Omagh atrocity in which 29 people died in a "Real IRA" bomb three years ago, the Boston Herald said the IRA's withdrawn offer would only serve to prove hardline unionists right.
"The IRA's decision to renege on its offer of just a week ago to put its arms verifiably beyond use now allows the equally recalcitrant unionists to say: `We told you so.' Ulster Unionist Party leaders had demanded `action' not words from the IRA.
"The British still have six weeks to try to cobble together some agreement that can save the power-sharing arrangement. Perhaps invoking memories of Omagh and of the lives so needlessly lost there will be a timely reminder of the human consequences of conflict."
The Boston Globe said it was ultimately up to unionists to "make or break" the Belfast Agreement.
The paper also referred to the arrest of three Irishmen in Colombia on charges of training FARC guerrillas in explosives.
It said this episode was not helpful to the cause of peace in the North.
"The peace agreement, however, will rise or fall on what happens in Northern Ireland, not South America. "Unionists will not fully accept the agreement until they sense there is no longer a private army at their back armed for war," the paper added.