However, this model is becoming difficult to recognise, with West Asia nowadays characterised by a different dynamic. Negotiations between warring parties continue during military confrontations, ceasefires coexist with airstrikes and mediators shuttle between capitals even as threats escalate.
The problem is not that diplomacy is failing. Instead, it is that diplomacy is no longer serving its traditional purpose. Rather than ending conflicts, diplomacy is helping to manage them – a distinction that matters because a conflict that is managed is not necessarily a conflict that is resolved.
The latest escalations between Israel and Iran, and now Iran and the US, illustrate this dilemma. None of these parties appears to want a full-scale regional war, as the costs would be enormous and the consequences unpredictable. Yet each of them is unwilling to abandon what they see as vital security interests.