Foreign Digest: NATO, Summit of the Americas, Iran, Venezuela and China

NATO: The applications of Finland and Sweden to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been blocked by Turkey over alleged support for Kurdish rebels. NATO requires consensus for decision-making. The Turkish objection does not matter for the Nordic countries’ security, however, because NATO has extended its security protection while their membership applications are pending. Finland and Sweden applied because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Summit of the Americas: The United States is excluding three dictatorships: Communist Cuba, Marxist Nicaragua and Socialist Venezuela from the Summit of the Americas. Some other leftist States will decline to attend, as a result, while others support the decision. Most States in the Americas are expected to attend. It would not be a foreign policy failure if there would not be complete attendance, as it is morally and politically right to exclude authoritarian regimes and to engage only with free States, as it provides an incentive for liberty and representative government to participate in international organizations and provides legitimacy that tyrannies lack. Iran, Venezuela, China: There have been demonstrations in Islamist Iran, Socialist Venezuela and Communist China against the tyrannical governments. Iranian protests against cost of living and government incompetence broadened to protests against the Islamist tyranny. Venezuelan supporters of the liberal democratic opposition leader, who claims the presidency under a constitutional provision, clashed with the dictatorial regime supporters. Commemorations in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre of thousands of peaceful protesters have been suppressed by the pro-Peking territorial government. Communist China has broken its promise to maintain Hong Kong’s autonomy and liberty that it made when the city-state reverted from British rule in 1997. In all three States where there have been demonstrations, the regimes have continued not to tolerate the freedom to assemble peacefully.