Diplomacy has had a poor run this century. Syria is just the latest example of how two sloppy doctrines, the War on Terror as fashioned by George W. Bush and the Liberal Interventionism of Tony Blair, have led to an unintended consequence: it has become harder to negotiate the compromises needed to end conflicts.

This is in part because these two concepts encourage all sides to dig in and resist compromise. Kofi Annan's new diplomatic mission appears to be bumping up against this. Encouraged by Nato support to Libyan rebels, Syria's opposition, despite being on the losing end of a military struggle with the Assad regime, continues to anticipate outside support to reverse that. So no need to negotiate with a regime that had ruthlessly killed thousands of civilians.

On the other side, like so many Arab regimes since 9/11, President Bashar Al-Assad has been quick to hide behind that last defence of dictators, that its opponents were terrorists. From Cairo to Bahrain, this has been trundled out as the excuse for oppression. For Assad, the fact that he is not granted this excuse by western critics is seen as more a matter of double standards than facts on the ground. So, cynically echoing American claims since 2001, he has insisted there is no negotiating with terrorists.

Kofi Annan, as UN and Arab League negotiator, needs to pick his way through these doctrinal landmines. Rightly, he has focused on a clear sequence: stop the fighting, allow humanitarian access, and then pursue a political negotiation to find a path for Syria's future.

In Syria's case, ending violence is a more necessary pre-condition for negotiation than in most. This is because Assad's continuing support from a substantial minority of his countrymen stems from his manipulation of the fear of terrorist violence and chaos if he falls. As leader of an Alawite Shia minority regime with secular, Christian and merchant allies, fear has been the glue that has held them together against a Sunni majority. Once guns are put down and it is possible to reduce the beleaguered defensiveness of his supporters and show them that they have a future with their rights protected in a post-regime future, the president's biggest card is gone.

Unchecked, the conflict will metastasise across the region. Qatari and Saudi Arabian support for the rebels will lead regime allies, including Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, to step up their trouble-making.

The regime may have reason to prefer a ceasefire and dialogue to its current crackdown. Despite its military superiority, all but its blindest stalwarts know its days are numbered. The degree of opposition from Arab neighbours, other than the Shia regimes in Iran and Iraq, the western determination to force accountability for the crimes against Syria's own citizens, offset admittedly by support in the UN Security Council from an increasingly embarrassed Russia and China, is not a scenario that in today's world regimes come back from. The web of international human rights and formal as well as social media exposure has provided a form of global accountability not there in 1982 when the President's father was able to get away with a similar crackdown.

For the would-be survivors in the regime there are three choices: opportunistic defections to jobs abroad; for the braver ones, publicly joining the opposition; or a negotiated settlement that allows them a Syrian future. Such a settlement will require Annan to negotiate several further minefields left behind by recent international behaviour. The first is that the Chinese and Russians have to be coaxed out of their post-Libya funk. The blatant stretching of the UN Security Council resolution - from protecting civilians from Gaddafi to successfully pushing for bloody regime change - has left Beijing and Moscow wary of collaboration and so effectively a prop to Assad. This is damaging both countries' broader standing in the region. It is also threatening their longer term interests in Syria when the inevitable change does come. Russia particularly, which has close ties to the top levels of the Syrian government, has much to gain from a negotiated solution that maintains a share in power for at least parts of the current establishment.

We need to seize hold of the unfashionable idea that diplomacy can do what Nato, arms supplies, intervention or outside bluster cannot do: ease Syria through to a democratic, law-based future. But to do that, there needs to be a united international community that together forces both sides to sit down around Kofi Annan's negotiating table and compromise.

(Mark Malloch-Brown is the former UN Deputy Secretary-General and author of The Unfinished Global Revolution. He is now Chairman, Global Affairs, at FTI Consulting.)

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