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The Republic of Turkey is consumed by intense conflict, conspiracy charges, and underlying financial problems that simply won't go away. A perfect storm is brewing in Turkey.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government and supporters are charged with a secret gold-for-oil deal with Iran. The deal, in violation of trade sanctions against Iran, enriched the PM's ministers and other key supporters involved (including the PM's son), according to prosecutors. The deal also involved misreporting billions of dollars in trade, which, in turn, resulted in Turkey overstating national income and understating its current account deficit. A more ominous charge focuses on Erdogan's open support of a wealthy Saudi known for funding al Qaeda and the PM's alleged support of Al Qaeda fighters engaged against the Syrian government. Just today, we say this headline: Turkish governor blocks police search on Syria-bound truck reportedly carrying weapons . Erdogan is a strong supporter of the Syrian rebels, assumed recipients of the weapons.The crisis started on December 17, 2013 when dozens of Erdogan's close associates were arrested for corruption. The arrests included the CEO of Turkey's state bank caught with million in euros stuffed in shoeboxes. Charges and arrests continued. Prosecutors and police who handled the case were fired at the behest of the Prime Minister. The Turkish supreme court ruled that the government couldn't interfere with police investigations through firings and intimidation. Undeterred, Erdogan fired more prosecutors claiming the charges were an attack on the Turkish state. To top it all off, authorities banned reporters from police stations and pressured the media to stop focusing on the scandals.

The risks to Erdogan are substantial and can impact the entire nation.The two biggest concerns are Erdogan's ongoing support for Syrian rebels, particularly the Islamist jihadists sponsored by Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Front. Critics of the PM are raising his open association with Yasin al-Qadi, an alleged funding source for Al Qaeda and a designated international terrorist by the U.S. government. Erdogan was dismissive of any problems when confronted on the association saying that al-Qadi was "a charitable person who loves Turkey." He may have more explaining to do if investigations continue.Reporting on evidence from prosecutors and first hand witnesses, Michael Rubin found:"According to Turkish interlocutors, there are consistent irregularities in 28 government tenders totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, in which kickbacks and other payments were made, a portion of which Turkish investigators believe ended up with al-Qadi’s funds and charities. These funds and charities were then used to support al-Qaeda affiliates and other radical Islamist groups operating in Syria like the Nusra Front." Dec. 27

The U.S. will remain the world’s biggest oil producer this year after overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as extraction of energy from shale rock spurs the nation’s economic recovery, Bank of America Corp. said. U.S. production of crude oil, along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year with daily output exceeding 11 million barrels in the first quarter, the bank said in a report today. The country became the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2010. The International Energy Agency said in June that the U.S. was the biggest producer of oil and natural gas liquids. “The U.S. increase in supply is a very meaningful chunk of oil,” Francisco Blanch, the bank’s head of commodities research, said by phone from New York. “The shale boom is playing a key role in the U.S. recovery. If the U.S. didn’t have this energy supply, prices at the pump would be completely unaffordable.”

Oil extraction is soaring at shale formations in Texas and North Dakota as companies split rocks using high-pressure liquid, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The surge in supply combined with restrictions on exporting crude is curbing the price of West Texas Intermediate, America’s oil benchmark. The U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer, still imported an average of 7.5 million barrels a day of crude in April, according to the Department of Energy’s statistical arm.

“The shale production story is bigger than Iraqi production, but it hasn’t made the impact on prices you would expect,” said Blanch. “Typically such a large energy supply growth should bring prices lower, but in fact we’re not seeing that because the whole geopolitical situation outside the U.S. is dreadful.”

OPEC Gulf oil producers will not propose an output cut on Thursday, reducing the likelihood of joint action by OPEC to prop up prices that have sunk by a third since June. "The GCC reached a consensus," Saudi Arabian Oil MinisterAli al-Naimi told reporters, referring to the Gulf Cooperation Council which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. "We are very confident that OPEC will have a unified position.""The power of convincing will prevail tomorrow ... I am confident that OPEC is capable of taking a very unified position," Naimi added.

A Gulf OPEC delegate told Reuters the GCC had reached a consensus not to cut oil output. Three OPEC delegates separately told Reuters they believed OPEC was unlikely to take any action when the 12-member organisation meets on Thursday after Russia said it would not cut output in tandem.The OPEC meeting will be one of its most crucial in recent years, with oil having tumbled to below $78 a barrel due to the U.S. shale boom and slower economic growth in China and Europe.Cutting output unilaterally would effectively mean for OPEC, which accounts for a third of global oil output, a further loss of market share to North American shale oil producers.

If OPEC decided against cutting and rolled over existing output levels on Thursday, that would effectively mean a price war that the Saudis and other Gulf producers could withstand due to their large foreign-exchange reserves. Other members, such as Venezuela or Iran, would find it much more difficult.

negotiations with Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia have failed to reach a joint pledge for OPEC nations to cut oil production. Ramirez, who was replaced as president of state-owned oil company PDVSA in September but continues to be Venezuela’s OPEC representative, met his counterparts on Tuesday in Vienna to kickstart the discussion on the plummeting price of oil before Thursday’s hugely significant OPEC summit. Between the United States shale boom and slower economic growth in Europe and China, the price of Venezuelan heavy crude dove from $99 per barrel in June to about $69 last week, prompting Ramirez’s diplomatic tour.

OPEC members Venezuela, Iraq, Ecuador, and Nigeria have all advocated for a cut in production as the quickest way to drive market prices back up. Statistics uphold this argument, considering OPEC estimations that global supply will exceed demand by more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of next year. But after Tuesday’s Vienna meeting Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, had reached a “consensus” not to do so. Al-Naimi believes the twelve-nation OPEC group, of which Saudi Arabia is the largest producer, will follow suit. "We are very confident that OPEC will have a unified position,” he said, in reference to tomorrow’s summit. Meanwhile, Russia’s most influential oil official, state-firm Rosneft’s president Igor Sechin, surprised some and quelled rumors by announcing the largest producing non-OPEC nation had no intention of reducing their output, either. Not even, Sechin said, if oil “falls under $60 a barrel.”

The Russian company recently signed a contract with PDVSA for the purchase of 1.6 million tons of petroleum and 9 million tons of derivatives of crude over the next five years. While it makes sense that the GCC prioritize market share over barrel price, to a certain extent, Russian government coffers have already been hard hit by dropping prices, causing Sechin’s comment to raise some eyebrows. Indeed, many analysts claim the oil glut of the early 1980’s (which almost bankrupt Venezuela) contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So the EU “defeated” Putin by forcing him to cancel the South Stream pipeline. Thus ruled Western corporate media. Nonsense. Facts on the ground spell otherwise. This “Pipelineistan” gambit will continue to send massive geopolitical shockwaves all across Eurasia for quite some time. In a nutshell, a few years ago Russia devised Nord Stream – fully operational – and South Stream – still a project – to bypass unreliable Ukraine as a gas transit nation. Now Russia devised a new deal with Turkey to bypass the “non-constructive” (Putin’s words) approach of the European Commission (EC). Background is essential to understand the current game. Five years ago I was following in detail Pipelineistan’s ultimate opera – the war between rival pipelines South Stream and Nabucco. Nabucco eventually became road kill. South Stream may eventually resurrect, but only if the EC comes to its senses (don’t bet on it.)

The 3,600 kilometer long South Stream should be in place by 2016, branching out to Austria and the Balkans/Italy. Gazprom owns 50 percent of it - along with Italy’s ENI (20 percent), French EDF (15 percent) and German Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF (15 percent). As it stands these European energy majors are not exactly beaming – to say the least. For months Gazprom and the EC were haggling about a solution. But in the end Brussels predictably succumbed to its own. Russia still gets to build a pipeline under the Black Sea – but now redirected to Turkey and, crucially, pumping the same amount of gas South Stream would. Not to mention Russia gets to build a new LNG (liquefied natural gas) central hub in the Mediterranean. Thus Gazprom has not spent $5 billion in vain (finance, engineering costs). The redirection makes total business sense. Turkey is Gazprom’s second biggest customer after Germany. And much bigger than Bulgaria, Hungary, and Austria combined. Russia also advances a unified gas distribution network capable of delivering natural gas from anywhere in Russia to any hub alongside Russia’s borders.

And as if it was needed, Russia gets yet another graphic proof that its real growth market in the future is Asia, especially China – not a fearful, stagnated, austerity-devastated, politically paralyzed EU. The evolving Russia-China strategic partnership implies Russia as complementary to China, excelling in major infrastructure projects from building dams to laying out pipelines. This is business with a sharp geopolitical reach – not ideology-drenched politics.

A mostly neoconservative group of national-security analysts have published perhaps the first comprehensive outline of what they believe a Republican foreign policy should look like as of Inauguration Day 2017. It’s titled “Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World.” Although it concedes that “there are limitations on American power,” according to the book’s “Forward” by former George W. Bush speechwriter, Peter Wehner, all of the contributors …understand, too, that with the right leadership and policies in place, the United States can once again be a guarantor of global order and peace, a champion of human rights, and a beacon of economic growth and human flourishing. There is no reason the 21st century cannot be the next American Century. …Choosing to Lead offers perspectives and recommendations on how to make the next American Century happen. In doing so, we believe it will serve the world as well as the United States of America.[Emphasis added.] If you sense a rebirth of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), you’re probably not far off, although Bob Kagan and Bill Kristol, who co-founded PNAC, are not among the large number of contributors. PNAC published two volumes, Present Dangers and Rebuilding American Defenses, that together formed a neocon manifesto for the Republican presidential candidate in the 2000 election in which the organization initially backed John McCain.

The new compilation is the product of the John Hay Initiative, named after Theodore Roosevelt’s chief diplomat, and brings together many of the foreign-policy advisers to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. The Initiative is co-chaired by Eliot Cohen (a charter member of PNAC), former Romney adviser Brian Hook, and Eric Edelman (who succeeded Doug Feith as undersecretary of defense under George W. Bush and has since served as co-founder and director—with Kagan and Kristol—of PNAC’s lineal descendant, the Foreign Policy Initiative). The 200 “experts” connected to the Initiative have reportedly advised almost all of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates. The Initiative has made no secret of its hope that a successful Republican presidential candidate will appoint many of its members to senior policy-making positions (much as PNAC’s charter members, such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Elliott Abrams, were all rewarded with senior posts under George W. Bush. Cohen positioned himself for an appointment in that administration by writing the perfectly timed book, Supreme Command, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion about how the best wartime presidents ignored the more cautious advice of their generals. A faithful signer of PNAC’s letters, Cohen was named counsel to Condoleezza Rice in Bush’s second term.