By MERVE ŞEBNEM ORUÇ, Daily Sabah

International economic sanctions on Iran have been lifted after the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that the ex-bogeyman of the West had complied with the deal designed to restrict Tehran’s nuclear program. Lifting economic sanctions will unfreeze more than $50 billion of long-frozen overseas assets, allow Iran to sell its oil internationally and purchase goods in the international marketplace.

The sanctions have cost Iran, which has the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world, more than $160 billion of revenue form oil since 2012 alone. Iran can increase its oil revenue by $10 billion next year at current prices. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) could go up to 5 percent in the next year.

Trade between nuclear-free nations is surely a good thing. It increases integration between countries and global security, decreases conflicts and makes the world a safer and wealthier place. But this theory usually works in times of peace. Is it wise to expect its success while we are in a grey area between peace and war? Is it not a bit risky to push the already destabilized region into a whole new kind of stability test, especially since for many countries in the region lifting the sanctions means sealing a new order in the Middle East imposed by the Western world?

First of all, Brent oil prices decreased below $28 a barrel on Monday morning while oil futures lost 4.4 percent, dipping to their lowest since November 2003. Oil prices have already collapsed nearly 75 percent from over $115 a barrel in June 2014 to $30 a barrel in January 2016. Experts say that they are expecting OPEC, which has not cut its oil production while oil prices fall, to now have to reduce production. But will OPEC, or Saudi Arabia to be clearer, do that after all that is happening in the oil price war in parallel with the escalating tensions in the region? Saudi Arabia’s decision to pump as much oil as they can had a lot to do with the P5+1 countries’ deal with Iran, which has been trying to dominate the region by rising tensions in conflict areas. Lifting sanctions on Iran without reaching a promising decision regarding the conflicts in the Middle East, especially in war-torn Syria, looks like a dangerous move by the U.S. to push the Saudis to cut oil production in a game where Saudi Arabia opted to cut production to stop the U.S. and Russia from tampering with the fine-tuning of the region. Riyadh already knew that sanctions would be lifted soon and things would come to this point when they kicked the ball in the first place.

We have not heard yet from Russia, which is the country that suffers the most from low oil prices, after the sanctions on Iran were lifted. If OPEC does not change its decision and continues to not cut production, falling oil prices will prolong the squeeze on Russia, Iran’s biggest ally in the region. That can affect alliances in the long term, especially the close relations between Russia and Iran.

In the meantime, the regime of President Bashar Assad in Damascus congratulated Iran for reaching a “major turning point” with world powers after the announcement of lifting sanctions, adding that they expected Iran to increase its support for “just causes” in the region. Iran, the powerful proxy force in Syria, as well as other countries like Iraq and Yemen, has already been the second-biggest financial and military supporter of the bloody Syrian regime after Russia. Since the civil war first broke out in 2011, Iran has been sending military equipment to the Syrian regime and providing its expertise on war zones to Assad. The Iranian Quds Force under the command of Major Gen. Qasem Soleimani has helped the Assad regime kill its own people and prepared the most suitable environment for DAESH to be born and grow in the region with the help of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is also militarily and financially backed by Iran. Since Iran lost many Iraqi and Hezbollah fighters deployed in Syria, it did not give up and started to send Shiite mercenaries from other countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, offering them thousands of dollars to fight.

The freeing up of billions of dollars of frozen Iranian assets will not only help Iran, but will also benefit Damascus. Now with Tehran with having a larger financial capacity it will continue to prop up the Damascus regime, especially with the consequences of the Vienna deal and the U.N. Security Council resolution with no mention of Assad’s future. We would expect human rights advocating Western leaders, and specifically U.S. “anti-war” President Barack Obama to secure a nuclear deal with Iran after they reach a point in Syria, valuing the millions of Syrians lives suffering inside and outside the country. But we see that this hope is vain and stupid.