International Journal on Criminology Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2018 | Page 65

International Journal on Criminology
line with, those of Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, and of course Ankara.
The slow process of resolving the Kurdish question thus brings us back to
the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the territorial disputes caused by the various
Sèvres and Locarno agreements, intended to rebuild the Middle East following the
break-up of the Ottoman Empire at the close of the First World War. Unfortunately
for the Kurds—and they are perfectly aware of this—they will once again bear the
cost of achieving a new stability across the main tectonic plates in this region.
Following the failed military coup on July 14, 2016, Ankara has moved closer
to Moscow, though without going so far as to break its historic alliance with the
United States and NATO, nor fully reconciling with Baathist Syria. In this context,
is Turkey able to comprehend that it must give up its dreams of re-establishing its
great Sultanate?
Either way, the convergence of Astana, Geneva, and even Ankara if its
position becomes more realist, could release the Syrian civil-global war from its
impossible situation. One additional, and by no means unimportant factor, can
be added to this hopeful perspective: the replacement at the head of the United
Nations (UN) of the bland Ban Ki-Moon—the Americans’ man—with Portuguese
diplomat António Guterres, who is clearly determined to restore color to the global
organization. The new head of the UN recently issued a forthright reminder that
an effective response to the current migration crisis requires making “increased
conflict-prevention capacity” a priority, and seeking to resolve ongoing conflicts!
The new UN Secretary-General added: “we must invest in social cohesion
in societies that are becoming multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural. We
must strengthen states, institutions, and civil societies.” This is precisely what
France, Great Britain, and the United States did not do by dismantling Libya, as
Washington and London had done to Iraq in 2003.
In seeking to achieve in Syria what they achieved in Iraq and Libya, the
United States and their allies demonstrate their ceaseless desire to break nation
states in order to replace them with micro states like Kosovo and South Sudan,
with their well-known disastrous consequences. After more than six years of an
extremely bloody war in Syria, it may be that finally—finally—Washington understands
that consolidating nation states in the Middle East will not only allow
for the return of some stability, but also enable the battle against contemporary
terrorism, the hidden face of globalization, to be fought more effectively.
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