The United Nations Security Council carried out a set of seemingly contradictory actions — calling for accountability, while failing to summon the will for restraint — on a single day, on Wednesday.

The council adopted a resolution condemning Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries and Jordan, and demanding that Tehran halt hostilities. Yet only hours earlier, it had failed to pass a separate draft resolution urging all parties to halt military activities in the Middle East and avoid further escalation. That draft, supported by Russia, China, Pakistan and Somalia, fell short after opposition from the United States and Latvia, and abstentions from nine other countries. As one can see, consensus on de-escalation is harder to build.

As China’s permanent representative to the UN, Fu Cong, rightly pointed out, the current Middle East crisis did not begin with Iran’s retaliation but with the joint military strikes launched by the US and Israel against the country without authorization from the council.

In other words, the council should acknowledge the initial action before condemning the domino.

Those initial strikes, Fu argued, violated the principles of the United Nations and the basic norms governing international relations. Wars launched without the council’s approval, history suggests, tend to produce consequences the council later struggles to contain.

But Fu made clear that the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Arab countries in the Gulf must be respected. “In this regard, China does not go along with Iran’s attacks against the Gulf Arab states, and condemns all indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians and non-military targets,” Fu noted.

The different fates of the two draft resolutions conspicuously show that the council sidestepped the root cause of the war, reducing international law to selective storytelling.

Diplomacy, after all, rarely works when half the story is left out.

The council chamber has seen this dilemma before: political narratives prevail while missiles continue to fly.

Meanwhile, the war is spreading across the region, sending tremors through global markets. When tankers burn and ports shut down, energy markets shudder and inflation gauges around the world begin flashing warning signs.

The battle might be confined to the Middle East, but the economic shock waves are global.

That explains China’s call for an immediate ceasefire and political dialogue. Beijing has emphasized diplomatic engagement, including regional outreach and shuttle diplomacy by its special envoy, to encourage negotiations and prevent further escalation. Though it rarely makes headlines, it is the pro-peace diplomacy — phone calls, corridor meetings, careful wording — that sometimes prevents catastrophes.

Responsible diplomacy requires addressing all relevant Gulf countries’ legitimate security concerns, while tackling the broader causes of the conflict. The goal, after all, is peace more than victory of either side.

The bigger question now hangs in Washington. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, former US secretary of state Antony Blinken suggested that the US must avoid being drawn into conflicts that spiral beyond strategic control.

The real danger lies in Washington allowing its policy to be steered by the strategic ambitions of Tel Aviv rather than by a sober calculation of global stability. Wars launched as “short excursions”, as some in Washington have described them, often have a habit of overstaying their welcome.

The UN Security Council’s split votes reveal how fractured the international system has become over some critical issues. In the end, the council faces a stark choice: continue passing selective judgments while the conflict widens, or rediscover its original purpose — preventing wars from consuming the very order it was created to protect.