Diplomacy is not dead, the world has just forgotten how to use it

Last week, the United States launched a large-scale aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, dropping 30 000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

This followed Israeli strikes the week before and was met with heavy Iranian retaliation. Over 400 people in Iran, mostly civilians, have reportedly died. At least 24 Israelis have been killed in missile reprisals.

The Strait of Hormuz has been threatened with closure. The United Nations Security Council is in emergency session. US embassies have been evacuated. Global oil markets are roiling and voices on every side are invoking the logic of escalation.

The question now is not whether diplomacy is dead in the Middle East, but whether anyone remembers what it looks like. And if they don’t, we in South Africa should remind them.

Just over three decades ago, our country faced what many believed was an irreversible path to civil war.

Between 1990 and 1994, nearly 15 000 South Africans were killed in politically motivated violence. Assassinations, township clashes and factional skirmishes threatened to engulf the nation.

And yet, the leaders of this country – President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, men from utterly different histories – chose dialogue over destruction. Together, they chose peace. They didn’t just sign a document, they built the architecture of peace from scratch.

They negotiated an interim Constitution, ushered in a Government of National Unity and laid the foundation for a democratic order under the final Constitution of 1996. Yes, they faced immense political resistance from their own constituencies. But together, they forged a new reality – one in which even former enemies could build a country together. All this is not nostalgia, it is precedent. And the Middle East needs to learn from it.

What is happening now in Iran and Israel has its own unique causes. Since the collapse of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or what has come to be known as “the Iran nuclear deal”, tensions have steadily risen.

The US withdrew from the agreement in 2018. By 2023, Iran had enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

Israel, seeing this as an existential threat, launched pre-emptive strikes on 13 June 2025. Iran fired missiles into Tel Aviv. The US joined a week later. Each step has been justified by one side as “self-defence,” but the result is a cycle of retaliation that endangers global peace.

The UN Charter, under article 2(4), prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. Only Security Council authorisation or article 51 (in self-defence) can lawfully justify such action. The US has claimed it acted to neutralise a threat. Israel has declared it seeks to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability entirely. Iran, in turn, asserts its sovereignty and vows to retaliate.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because history has shown us again and again what happens when diplomacy is abandoned and self-defence becomes synonymous with brutal force.

But force is not policy. Bombs do not build stability. We know this because we have lived it. South Africa’s transition succeeded not because we had the perfect Constitution waiting in a drawer or because our society had magically healed. It succeeded because both sides accepted that dialogue was less costly than bloodshed.

They knew that without talks, there would be nothing left to govern. The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) began in 1991 with enormous mistrust. The Boipatong massacre in 1992 nearly derailed it. Chris Hani’s assassination in 1993 could have ignited a civil war.

But again and again, our leaders returned to the table. They understood that the process – imperfect, fragile, maddening – was more powerful than any one grievance. And this is the same lesson that must be applied in the Middle East.

We must believe that there is nothing inevitable about war between Israel and Iran. Just as the Camp David Accords in 1978 turned enemies into diplomatic partners and returned Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace, so too did the Oslo Accords of the 1990s prove that even the Israeli-Palestinian question could be approached through mutual recognition and negotiation.

Yes, Oslo ultimately failed. But its failure was not a repudiation of diplomacy; it was a failure of political courage to sustain it. The same can be said of the JCPOA. It was an imperfect but effective mechanism to prevent nuclear escalation. Iran complied. The international community verified. But it was unilaterally abandoned in 2018. The current crisis is the direct result.

We know that diplomacy is not a naïve ideal. It is the first principle of international law. The UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations – all of them exist to provide a framework for peace, even in the darkest of times.

Under article 33 of the UN Charter, states are obligated to resolve disputes by peaceful means. Customary international law prohibits the deliberate targeting of civilians. The Geneva Conventions bind all parties, even in war, to proportionality, distinction and humane treatment. Diplomacy is thus the mechanism that ensures those laws are not just ink on paper but living safeguards for human dignity.

And we have, over the years, seen other nations learn this. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland by establishing power-sharing and addressing historical grievances. The 2016 peace deal in Colombia ended Latin America’s longest-running insurgency, with 260 000 dead and 7 million displaced, through an inclusive process of transitional justice.

These were not miracles. They were choices.

What would it take for the Middle East to choose peace? First, open channels unconditionally. Mandela echoed the sentiment that the only way to trust someone is to simply trust them. That sentiment is not meant to be blind faith, but rather strong political will.

Quiet diplomacy – through back-channels, third-party intermediaries, or regional platforms – is not weakness. It is how war is prevented.

Second, include all parties.

In South Africa, the ANC, the National Party, the IFP and even fringe groups were eventually brought into dialogue. In the Middle East, that means involving not just the US, Iran and Israel, but also the Gulf States, Turkey and actors like Hezbollah that hold sway over real conditions on the ground.

Exclusion breeds sabotage. Inclusion creates accountability.

Third, restore or renegotiate the nuclear deal. The JCPOA’s technical architecture can still serve as a basis for limiting enrichment, lifting sanctions and guaranteeing regional security. The cost of inaction (or even indifference) is far greater than the political difficulty of re-engagement.

Fourth, create guarantees. Whether through the UN or a new regional mechanism, a peace framework must include verification, economic support and political cover for leaders taking risks.

Finally, appeal to people, not just governments. Leaders must prepare their populations for compromise. In South Africa, that meant referendums, unity talks and mass civic engagement (like the United Democratic Front).

It was not easy. But it worked.

The FW de Klerk Foundation believes in constitutionalism, dialogue and international law. We do not pretend that every context is the same, or that South Africa’s path is easily copied. But we do know that peace is possible, even when it seems impossible. That truth is not negotiable. And it is not too late.

Let the world remember that the best outcomes are built not from domination, but from diplomacy. Let the Middle East remember that peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of dialogue. And let the leaders of today remember that if Mandela and de Klerk could forge a new country from the ashes of division, then surely, even in the rubble of conflict, nations can find a path back to peace.

Ismail Joosub is Manager of Constitutional Advancement at the FW de Klerk Foundation.