Falling oil prices: Turkey and a new war on sharing

Oil prices dropped to a four-year low this week to around $84 (TL 188.8) per barrel. So, is this a consequence of a demand and supply gap or a heavier matter that needs to be addressed in detail? It is definitely the latter, as this topic has both political and economic implications.

The events that occurred after the U.K. explored Mosel's oil fields in 1918 may remain marginal or peripheral to what will happen henceforth, as a new Turkey-centric political will is emerging in a way that is totally unexpected by those who have so far controlled the dynamics of this huge "underground" capital. This political will globalizes Caspian, Middle Eastern, North African and Mediterranean energy resources, which are far above the current market pricings of all the global American companies.

Apart from all this, the hi-tech industry of information and computing, which began flourishing in the U.S. in the early 1980s, no longer wants energy resources to be monopolized and usurped by the West. The computing sector hopes that new "wealth" will emerge in the underdeveloped regions of world, as well as that a new bourgeoisie will come into power in order to introduce an economy where everyone has a computing device and access to knowledge. "What is scarce is expensive and profitable" was the basic economic principle of the old capitalistic philosophy; now, it has turned the other way around, and the motto of new capitalism has become "sharing is good and it brings wealth." The new capitalistic philosophy is in favor of transparency and disclosing everything. This is exactly what WikiLeaks engages in, for instance, and it is a symbolic rising that initiates this new philosophy.

Well, how will this new philosophy affect countries like Turkey, or rather, where will Turkey stand? It is obvious that those who had prevailed until the 20th century established predominance by subjugating the eastern and southern parts of the world. They globalized eastern resources to their own delight, shared them among themselves and left the remaining under the ground to prevent the true owners of these resources from using them and flourishing. This unfair and imperialistic practice is coming to an end now. Therefore, countries like Turkey will side with the "new" philosophy in line with their own interests.

Especially since June 2011, or the third Justice and Development (AK) Party government, Turkey has made strategic agreements with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and developed the most important energy project of the 21st century, the Southern Gas Corridor, which consists of the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) with Azerbaijan. However, the tools and nasty finance system of old capitalism have attacked Turkey, and this is the reality the region has encountered since 2011.

Let us revisit the current oil-pricing situation. On Wednesday, oil prices fell below $80 per barrel. Here, the problem of supply and demand is in favor of supply. The emergence of this problem does not only depend on the current crisis, but also on the abovementioned dispute. This price-cutting operation is aimed at oil producers Russia and Iran, which survive by holding on to the "old" paradigm and sustain the financial oligarchy of the 20th century. However, these countries have not yet discerned this reality or they are just pretending. For example, during an interview with the Anadolu Agency (AA), Marcel Salikhov, the head of the economics department at the Moscow-based Institute for Energy and Finance, said that the Russian economy depends largely on oil prices, adding: "There is no immediate danger for the Russian federal budget. Russia has an accumulated surplus for 2014 totaling around $30 billion. In addition, the Russian reserve fund and the National welfare funds also have around $200 billion in their reserves. So it hurts, but Russia can cope with prices at $80-$90 per barrel." Salikhov also said he did not believe in the claims that Saudi Arabia and the U.S. lowered oil prices in order to punish Russia for the Ukraine crisis. "Saudi Arabia cannot change the global oil market on its own. But it is adjusting its strategy in line with new developments," he said. In another interview with AA, Matthew James Bryza, the former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, said that the reason for the decrease in oil prices is not Saudi Arabia's threat against Russia and Iran, but to a global oversupply of oil. He underscored that oil prices could continue to drop to $60-70 per barrel, and said, "Economic growth in Europe, China and U.S. is slow. There is no big global economic growth in the short-term that will stimulate more oil demand." And if you ask the same question to an Iranian official, you will get the same answers more or less.

Here, I have to say that Russia and Iran have not yet awakened to the reality that this is a result of historic contention. If Russia and Iran start to behave sensibly and follow Turkey's lead, they will secure their people's future when the balances of the world dramatically change by 2025. The West is deceiving Russia and Iran once again, so I would like to conclude by reminding Russia of the consequences of the 1853 Crimean War.