There is a persistent tendency in international affairs to assume that certain conflicts are beyond resolution. The tensions between the United States and the Iran are frequently placed in this category: too ideological, too historical, and too militarised to be mediated.
That assumption is misplaced.
The difficulty is not that mediation is impossible. It is that what is currently described as “mediation” bears little resemblance to any disciplined process recognised in either UK mediation practice or principled negotiation theory.
As a practising barrister and mediator in the United Kingdom, where mediation is structured, confidential, and procedurally disciplined, the contrast is striking. In commercial disputes, even deeply entrenched parties are routinely brought to settlement. Not because they agree, but because the process forces clarity, sequencing, and realism.
In the US - Iran context, those disciplines are largely absent.
At the centre of the current diplomatic landscape sit two competing constructs:
These are often described in commentary as “roadmaps” or “negotiation foundations”. In practice, they function as competing end-state declarations, not mediation instruments.
They do not construct a pathway to agreement. They define what agreement would look like if it already existed.
This is the fundamental structural error that undermines the entire process.
Iran’s framework represents a comprehensive geopolitical settlement vision:
This is not a negotiation framework. It is a complete end-state architecture.
It assumes resolution rather than building toward it.
The United States’ framework is structurally inverse but equally rigid:
This is not mediation. It is a behavioural compliance system, not a negotiated settlement structure.
In UK mediation practice, and in the principles set out in Getting to Yes, effective negotiation requires four core disciplines:
Both the 10-point and 15-point frameworks fail all four tests.
Each framework locks both parties into rigid demands:
Neither meaningfully explores the underlying interests that could allow convergence.
There is no attempt to create:
Instead, each side presents a single, fully formed settlement model.
Both frameworks demand large-scale simultaneous compliance.
This creates immediate deadlock:
In mediation terms, this removes the possibility of momentum.
Each side defines compliance unilaterally. There is no jointly accepted standard for:
This guarantees future interpretive conflict.
A recurring feature in commentary surrounding these frameworks is the suggestion that elements of the 10-point and 15-point plans have been “agreed in principle”, including during discussions such as the Pakistan-hosted negotiations often described in media narratives as “Trump - Iran negotiations fail in Pakistan”.
This is where the process breaks down most visibly.
In proper mediation, “agreement in principle” is not symbolic. It is procedural. It requires:
What appears to have occurred instead is:
This is not agreement. It is asymmetric perception of negotiation outcomes.
And once that occurs, every subsequent clarification is interpreted not as dialogue, but as reversal.
The Pakistan-hosted negotiations are frequently framed as a “failed breakthrough attempt”, including in analytical commentary such as that associated with Prof. Jiang Xueqin’s interpretation of the talks as evidence of structural diplomatic failure.
However, the more precise issue is not failure of negotiation, but absence of mediation architecture.
Reported dynamics included:
This is not mediation. It is high-level diplomacy operating without procedural containment.
The result is predictable:
This is not convergence. It is narrative divergence.
When frameworks replace process, three systemic distortions emerge:
The same language produces different interpretations.
Statements are treated as breakthroughs before they are stabilised.
Any divergence is reinterpreted as bad faith or withdrawal.
This creates a cycle in which diplomacy does not accumulate progress, but instead repeatedly resets.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action remains the clearest demonstration that structured diplomacy in this context is possible.
It worked because it:
Its collapse following US withdrawal does not disprove mediation. It highlights a different problem entirely: the fragility of agreements in the absence of political continuity.
A genuine mediation process would require a complete departure from current practice.
It would:
Most importantly, it would treat negotiation as process construction, not political declaration.
From a mediation perspective, the enduring tension between the United States and Iran is not a demonstration of the limits of negotiation, but of the consequences of misapplied process.
What is presented as diplomacy is too often a sequence of competing declarations, structured end-state frameworks, and retrospective claims of partial agreement. Yet mediation, properly understood, does not begin with positions, nor does it end with announcements. It operates in the disciplined space between interest and outcome, where clarity is built gradually, tested rigorously, and only then formalised.
The absence of that discipline is what produces instability. When frameworks are treated as substitutes for process, and when “agreement” is inferred rather than constructed, negotiation ceases to function as a mechanism for resolution and instead becomes a cycle of interpretation, contradiction, and reversal.
True mediation demands restraint before resolution. It requires that parties resist the political temptation to declare progress before it has been structurally achieved. It insists that understanding precedes agreement, and that agreement is only meaningful when it is shared in both language and intent.
Seen through that lens, the issue is not that the US - Iran conflict is unmediable. It is that it has not yet been subjected to mediation in its proper form.
Until process is restored to its rightful place at the centre of diplomacy, outcomes will continue to be asserted rather than achieved, and conflict will remain suspended not by resolution, but by narrative.