Indefensible

Is there no getting rid of NATO, which has done no good, but plenty of harm, since 1991? It is now effectively expanding to include the entire Middle East. Well, apart from Iran, which has not started a war in modern times and is in fact the (non-nuclear) victim of the world's only outstanding threat of a nuclear strike by any state against any other. Syria and Lebanon will presumably also be unwelcome, defined instead as The Enemy.

Still, so much for the pretence that Israel and the Gulf potentates are at daggers drawn; in fact, they have long sponsored joint candidates for President of the United States, most recently Hillary Clinton. And so much for the idea of NATO as an alliance of democracies. At least one, and probably two, of the Middle East's more democratic countries are to be kept out of the latest de facto expansion, while several of the most despotic regimes on earth are to be welcomed with open arms.