With leaders of the two instigating countries invoking destiny, civilization and ancient cities, there have been moments in the current Middle East crisis when their rhetoric has become almost operatic. Yet the reality is a rising death toll and a foundering global economy.

This week, it was the Israeli leader who sang a cadenza, proclaiming in Jerusalem that Iran had been weakened, the city would remain forever under Israeli control and Israel had transformed the Middle East. Accompanying him there was his characteristic leitmotif of renewed confrontation, with reports emerging of fresh consultations between Tel Aviv and Washington, which have culminated in fresh threats of military options against Iran voiced by the US leader.

The Middle East has seen this script play out before, many times. It always begins with declarations of that something must be done to counter what is alleged to be a clear and present "danger" and ends with ordinary people paying the bill.

But the real danger lurks beneath the libretto — the belief that force can finally settle questions that have resisted bombs, invasions, assassinations and sanctions for generations.

The recent US-Israeli strikes on Iran, conducted without authorization from the United Nations Security Council, were presented as acts of "strategic necessity". But legality matters, even when powerful nations prefer urgency to procedure. Once the principle is established that states may launch "preventive" attacks whenever they present a "threat" to the public, the entire international order becomes negotiable.

That precedent now hangs over the region like stage smoke that refuses to clear.

The uneasy ceasefire painstakingly achieved after weeks of escalation is fragile enough already. Reopening the conflict will not produce the desired effects of the two impresarios. Instead, it would deepen the region's fragmentation and risk turning the Strait of Hormuz into a chronic geopolitical wound.

That would have consequences far beyond the Middle East.

The global economy is already limping through debt burdens, inflationary pressures and slowing growth. Prolonged impeding of transit through the Strait of Hormuz could institutionalize high oil and gas prices. The world has emerged from temporary energy shocks in the past. A permanent condition of insecurity is another matter entirely.

Nor can Gulf states afford it. They increasingly find themselves trapped between strategic alliances and regional survival, with the United Arab Emirates' predicament being a case in point.

Many Arab states understand this danger clearly. That is why most regional governments continue to advocate de-escalation, dialogue and negotiated security arrangements rather than another descent into open conflict.

China's stance on the Middle East reflects this concern. Beijing's four-point proposal for peace and stability in the region emphasizes an immediate ceasefire, adherence to international law, renewed dialogue and negotiations, and addressing the humanitarian catastrophe facing civilians. It also stresses that external powers should avoid inflaming tensions and instead support political solutions.

One need not romanticize diplomacy to recognize the obvious: negotiations are frustrating, slow and imperfect. But wars in the Middle East have repeatedly demonstrated something even more manifest — violence begets more violence in what has become a seemingly never ending cycle.

The region's crises remain inseparable from the unresolved Palestinian issue. One can redraw buffer zones, destroy tunnels, eliminate commanders and conduct air strikes deep inside sovereign territory. Yet none of it resolves the fundamental question at the heart of the conflict.

Without a just and durable settlement of the Palestinian question, instability merely changes form.

This is the paradox confronting Washington. The US speaks the language of strength and deterrence, yet it also has the most to lose from another regional war spiraling out of control. Even within Israel, many quietly understand that perpetual mobilization is not a sustainable national strategy.

The temptation in Washington is always to believe that escalation can help restore order. But the Middle East is littered with the ruins of such confidence.

The wiser course now is restraint.

The US should value the hard-earned ceasefire rather than allow itself to be drawn into another cycle of confrontation by the calculations of Tel Aviv. Regional countries should continue promoting peace talks instead of military blocs. And all parties should remember that the purpose of diplomacy is not to reward friends or punish adversaries, but to prevent catastrophe before it becomes irreversible.