There are more than two players in this national conversation. Gbagbo and Soro may have made their agreement but there has been only reluctant acceptance by Ouattara, Bedie, and the other rebel parties. France has yet to speak. It seems highly unlikely that, after the venom and malice shown by Chirac and his minions over the years towards Gbagbo and the FPI, that France will smilingly pack up its shop in the Ivory Coast and send home its 3,750 soldiers. The volte-face of Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso is more easily understood as he heads a country which is an international basket case and which needs the fuels and transport links with the Ivory Coast to survive. The French have not bankrolled him in the style to which he was accustomed so he made the best deal he could; peace broker in the Ivory Coast.

There may be agreement as how the country should proceed, but there has still been no disarmament. Not one rebel has turned in his weapon; not one occupied town in the North has become unoccupied. There have been hopes before, after Accra, Pretoria, etc. but these have all come undone with the failure of the rebels to disarm.

The danger comes along with the peace plan. As Gbagbo and Soro set up the institutions of convergence (uniting the Army, rebuilding a national civil service, etc.) these institutions take on a life of their own; for want of a better word they become ‘institutionalised’. That means they have a momentum and a force independent of those who created them. They have staffs and a program. New ministers will take their places. This means that, as these reforms take place and are institutionalised, both Gbagbo and Soro become personally irrelevant to their momentum. It might have taken a Gbagbo and a Soro to create these but it doesn’t require their continued presence to continue them.

That is why there is such danger. As progress in restoring democracy is made it is easier and tempting to remove (either physically or politically) either or both Gbagbo and Soro in the knowledge that their departure will not influence the direction or pace of the reforms or the new institutions. This where the French reaction will be important. Once there is a movement towards institutionalising the peace process, agreed by both sides, the French are then free to try to remove or marginalise Gbagbo by supporting Soro (or if he is supplanted by Ouattara or Bedie) in the GTI, the UN Security Council and the ECOWAS as the powerful and legitimate one in the agreement; putting Gbagbo in a largely ceremonial role. They have tried to do exactly this for four years and there is no evidence that they have abandoned this plan.

The French troops have not left. French businesses thrive in the Ivory Coast and have been effective in keeping others out. Their stooge, Banny, is still in power as a notional Prime Minister and there has been no disarmament.

The cafes of Libreville and Conakry are full of gossip about Middle Eastern types anxious to find clients for their weapons and training to topple Gbagbo and Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson. West Africa is full of Lebanese traders and businessmen who have never ceased to meddle in local politics. The rise of Hizbollah and the infusions of Iranian cash in the Lebanon, Iraq and Syria have made these threats more real. The fact that the North-South divide in the Ivory Coast is also a divide between a largely Muslim North and a Christian South makes these distinctions more ominous. The fact that they travel on Venezuelan passports doesn’t diminish their ardour for jihad (and diamonds and gold).

This is a time for optimism and hope but also a time to keep one’s hands firmly on the stick until you know that the snake is really dead.