Ever since the Commonwealth of Independent States was formed, the summits held by its leaders have been followed by dire premonitions of the alliance's death. Friday's summit in Bishkek was no different.


There certainly were enough corpse-like symptoms to warrant a gloomy forecast -- like the fact that almost nothing on the agenda was resolved.


But an obituary is a maudlin thing and in this case, probably misplaced. The best analysts have from the start looked at the Commonwealth as the Soviet Union's undertaker, rather than as its sickly offspring.


For, realistically, there never was any hope that the former Soviet republics, even just 11 of the 15, would reform the empire as a happy political union. Instead, the great task of the Commonwealth has been to give the Soviet Union a civilized burial, ensuring that the relatives did not kill each other at the Communist empire's graveside.


Under the circumstances, the funeral probably has gone as happily as could be expected so far.


True, small wars in the Caucusus, Moldova and Tajikistan are proving bloody and tough to end. But it could be a lot worse, and the measure of the Commonwealth's success as an institution will be made only in the longer term, where the frustrating summit meetings will be judged, not as a series of failures, but as the talking shop that did or did not avoid a Yugoslav-style conflagration.


In that sense, the real news from Bishkek was that the 11 leaders now publicly recognize the Commonwealth's true role. Even the Kyrgyz president, Aksar Akayev, said his republic planned to leave the Commonwealth in the end, but was nevertheless one of the organization's most loyal supporters.


Akayev also said the bilateral deals he made with Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar were more important than the general agreements reached at the summit. and that is true too.


Under the Commonwealth's umbrella there is now a two-track circuit, with five or six republics in the fast lane and the and the rest effectively observers. That ends hope for any far-reaching general agreements. But it does not stop presidents from conferring away from the conference table and striking deals of their own. In that sense, the Commonwealth acts as midwife to a new and looser order.


So when the bell tolls for the Commonwealth, do not mourn. As undertaker or midwife, it was only ever meant to ease the process and then disappear off stage.