Is arms control experiencing a renaissance in the Middle East?

The current dynamic between Israel and Iran is uneasy, bordering on a war but not quite being so. But without question it is a military conflict that has changed in character and grown in intensity with the potential for all guns to blaze.

For decades, Israel and Iran fought a shadow war across the region in multiple domains. In recent months, however, the two have attacked each other directly with fighter jets, drones, and missiles.

Yet Schelling and Halperin define arms control in part as "reducing the scope and violence" of war if war occurs. In other words, managing the process and impact.

Not avoiding but managing

Israel and Iran are already in a state of military conflict. The issue is: how they manage it.

For all the bluster and posturing by both sides, and for all the violence they have used indirectly and directly against each other, they have deliberately engaged in arms control to prevent serious escalation that could lead to all-out war.

Consider the April tit-for-tat. Israel killed Iranian generals in a consulate in Syria, so Iran launched an historic and direct attack against Israel using more than 300 drones and missiles, to the cheers of Iranians demanding vengeance.

But before it did, it telegraphed its intentions and informed intermediaries who knew the details and had time to intervene.

Israel and its friends duly prepared their defences, deployed their resources, and intercepted virtually every Israel-bound explosive before they could do any real harm—all consistent with Tehran's wishes.

Paradoxical? Yes. Surreal? Yes. Why go to all the effort and expense then sabotage your own attack?

Iran denied itself the element of surprise—critical for any attack—to purposely avoid targeting urban centres or killing civilians. Had it not done, and had it coordinated its attack with the powerful Hezbollah, for example, it could have caused serious harm to Israel.

After such an unprecedented, daring, and frightening attack, the Israelis responded by destroying part of a long-range air defence system in Isfahan.

By all accounts, this was a measured response, intended once again to prevent escalation, while signalling to Iran that they can penetrate its defences and, if they wanted, go after the nuclear enrichment sites and other strategic facilities.

Applied in Lebanon and Iran

This kind of behaviour and mutual restraint, while informal, constitutes arms control. It lives in the broader universe of deterrence, but it has its own name, logic, and processes.

It is more specific than deterrence, and if pursued more vigorously by adversaries, can result in written or formal understandings. In short, arms control is a tool that supports the mission of deterrence.

Though yet to happen, another example of arms control in the region since 7 October is between Israel and Hezbollah.

In an effort to de-escalate their confrontation, the United States has proposed measures reminiscent of conventional arms control concepts and practices in Europe and Asia.

In return for Israel ending Lebanese airspace violations and taking other de-escalatory steps, Hezbollah would pull its Radwan force (named after Hajj Radwan, the nom de guerre of the late top military commander, Imad Mughniyeh) back to the Litani River.

When Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March 1978 (in response to the killing of dozens of Israelis on a coastal road by Palestinian gunmen), it invaded up to the Litani River, which forms a natural boundary through the country's southern regions.

In addition, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) would receive an upgrade in personnel and materiel to support such an agreement, and Lebanon and Israel would enter into formal negotiations on land border demarcation.

Such an arrangement, if it were to happen, would allow Israeli residents in the north to return to their homes, and Lebanese residents in the south to do the same.

Reinforcing old rules of war

Will Israel and Iran enter into formal arms control agreements to reduce uncertainty and prevent the worst from happening? It is doubtful, not least because Iran does not recognise Israel diplomatically, and so cannot engage in direct talks with it.

Yet even the tacit and indirect form of cooperation that we witnessed in April is useful and can be built upon by outside actors including the United States, Europe, Russia, and the Arab Gulf nations. They all have a stake in regional stability.

The focus of such a diplomatic exercise would be to reinforce old rules of war that are consistent with international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention, and that should have been observed by both parties: Israel and Iran would limit their attacks to military targets and do everything they can to avoid or minimise civilian casualties, which Israel has clearly failed to do in Gaza.

This issue is of the utmost importance because it carries the greatest risk of escalation. Of course, mutual protection of civilians is not the same as guaranteeing no escalation, but it is a good starting point.

For a while now, arms control has been viewed as a dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War with little relevance to today's complex and non-nuclear inter-state dynamics that feature well-armed non-state actors

But in the Middle East, there is plenty of room for the discipline, in large part because several conflicts in that part of the world seem more manageable than solvable.

Through pragmatic arms control consistent with the security interests of the belligerents, these conflicts can self-regulate, with in-built dampening mechanisms, to prevent all-out war. That, surely, is in the interest of everybody.