While the Israeli and Iranian strikes are linked in a crescendo of unprecedented hostilities for decades, the world seems to hold its breath in the face of a regional war with potentially planetary repercussions. A domino game seems to be set up and alliance games favor one or the other of the belligerents. China has sent equipment to Iran, Pakistan threatens the Hebrew state, France has supported Israel and Trump’s United States has promised to intervene against Iran if the country threatened its interests.
In the meantime, new dead accumulate on both sides. Faced with weapons, in this geopolitical tumult, only diplomacy will save what can still be. And today there are capable mediators – if they have the will – to reopen the closed doors of negotiation. Israel cannot take the risk of being scratched from the card and Iran of the Mullahs, weakened like never, will not save the regime by a long conflict.
“If Russia can play offspring, it is also to better reinforce its essential power position”
Because the current war is not only a military confrontation; It is the cumulative failure of twenty years of missed diplomacy, strategic isolation, faults from the United States, ineffective unilateral sanctions and dialogues too often interrupted. But the current impasse is not inevitable. States still have legitimacy, levers and know-how to create the conditions for a de-escalation.
Russia, between pragmatism and cynicism
The first to have proposed his help is Russia of Vladimir Putin. Which can lend to smile given the conflict in which Moscow has been mired with kyiv for three years. Russia appears, however, however, as one of the most credible mediators of the moment. His solid relations with Iran, combined with his open canals with Israel, place her in a pivot position.
Moscow is not mistaken: by recently proposing to store Iranian enriched uranium on its soil, it sends a clear message – that of diplomatic utility against Western isolation, and strengthens its alliance with the Teheran regime. But beware of the double game: if Russia can play the biders, it is also to better strengthen its essential power position in a world order that it wants to redraw. The bet is risky, but it can bear fruit – if the goal is peace, not controlled chaos.
Turkey: the opportunity to return to the role of regional balancingist
After several unsuccessful attempts including its recent recent negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians, Ankara, always quick to take on the role of mediator in the crises of the Middle East, proposed to facilitate discussions on Iranian nuclear. Erdogan, in search of a new diplomatic breath, would see the opportunity to regain control in a region where his voice has weakened.
Turkey has the means to play this role, provided they rebuild confidence with Israel, deeply damaged since the Mavi Marmara affair. Its advantage? Being a Sunni Muslim actor accepted by Shiite Iran and, to a certain extent, by the West. A rare case in the current diplomatic landscape.
Oman and the Emirates: the diplomacy of silence that carries
These are the real craftsmen of the shadows. Oman, in particular, was the discreet host of secret negotiations between the United States and Iran last spring and tries to use the role he had for decades, that of a neutral agent between all the Arab countries to act in the event of a conflict.
The United Arab Emirates, they deploy a cozy but aggressive diplomacy, focusing on the soft power and the assumed neutrality: the Abraham agreements have devoted their relations to Israel, which has never prevented Abu Dhabi from maintaining important strategic and economic relations with Iran, and its former Syrian ally of the time, the Bachar al-Assad regime.
Qatar: master of impossible dialogues
It is the rising power in terms of mediation at the heart of a mistreated multilateralism for many years in the Middle East. Doha has already orchestrated: exchanges of prisoners, ceasefire with Hamas, Taliban negotiations. He knows the cogs of indirect discussions perfectly and knows how to speak to all actors, from the most frequentable to the most infrequent.
“On paper, the European Union and the UN have everything to succeed”
It is the strength of small emirates, do everything to get angry with anyone, which is life insurance but also a way to welcome dialogue. Qatar is used to negotiating with Israel about Gaza for years, and it has excellent relations with Iran, notably sharing the largest gas field in the world.
Europe and the UN: legitimacy without the will?
On paper, the European Union and the UN have everything to succeed: neutrality, structure, diplomatic networks. But their chronic paralysis and their lack of responsiveness today make them almost anecdotal. Europe speaks, but does little. The UN condemns, but is not listened to. This does not mean that they are useless: their role will come in the second phase – that of institutionalization, the implementation, the coordinated lifting of sanctions, or the sending of observers. But they will not be the triggers of peace.
The United States will have to enter the game again
They are not perfect, but Donald Trump’s will to resume negotiations with Iran, before the outbreak of war by Netanyahu, left a suspicion of hope. If Trump wants to end the endless wars, he absolutely does not wish to engage in a new conflict and make the choice of weapons, which have already cost the Americans enough for thirty years.
The Israelis are waiting, like the Iranians, that Trump reinvested, at least to relaunch the interrupted dialogue which was still to be held in recent days between Israelis and Iranians, like Iranian dialogue. With the United States, it’s not always going, but without, it is hardly better.
This current conflict is also clearly that of the end of a unipolar world. He will not resolve himself in Washington, neither in Paris, nor in Geneva. These major historic cities of international law are over. Today, mediation takes place as close as possible to the regions on fire, and with the support of the powers that count on the spot. The fate of Israelis and Iranians will be played in Moscow, Mascate, Doha, Ankara, maybe with the help of Westerners but in the Middle East. It’s time or never to test multipolar diplomacy – not as a slogan, but as a collective survival lever.
The mediators are there. The tools exist. Only one thing is missing: political will. May the great powers stop looking at this conflict as a secondary theater. That they understand that an open war between Israel and Iran, it is not only regional chaos, it is the end of an already weakened global system.
Peace will not fall from heaven. But it can still be built. Discreetly, patiently, strategically. Provided you give oneself the means. And still believe that the Word, despite everything, is better than the bomb.
*Sébastien Boussois is a doctor of political science, teacher in international relations at IHECS (Brussels), associated with CNAM Paris (Defense Security Team), at the Institute of Applied Geopolitics Studies (IEGA Paris), the Nordic Center for Conflict Transformation (NCCT Stockholm) and the Geostrategic Observatory in Geneva (Switzerland).
