Foreign Digest: Lebanon, Finland and Sweden

Lebanon: Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terrorist party, lost its majority in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections this week, as reformers won the most votes and seats. Lebanon has been plagued by the highest national debt, incompetence and corruption. It is often dominated by Syria, which harbors Hezbollah and is the conduit for Iranian support. Iran and the Russian Federation back Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad against rebels. Finland and Sweden: Finland and Sweden ended their longstanding policies of neutrality by requesting admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Finland has been neutral since the Second World War and Sweden from long before. The Nordic States have been prompted to join the Atlantic Alliance because of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The northern Baltic States of Finland and Sweden, who have sanctioned the Russian Federation, have been official partners of NATO. Because of Sweden’s strategic location, it has been victimized frequently by Soviet and then Russian incursions into its airspace and territorial waters. Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer who is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union, has threatened Finland and Sweden, but they have insisted on exercising their sovereignty in deciding whether or not to join the defensive alliance that poses no offensive threat to Russia. They join Georgia, Ukraine and Kosovo in applying to join NATO, but Finland and Sweden’s applications will be expedited and they are receiving security guarantees during the adhesion process. NATO member Turkey, led by an Islamist dictator, is objecting to their application because of support for Kurds in Syria against the Islamic State Islamist terrorists, who are an offshoot of al-Qaeda, over ties to Marxist terrorist Kurds who operate in Turkey.