Let’s start by discussing Spain, which may seem like an odd choice, but bear with me. Spain’s socialist government has become a study in radicalism and spiraling decline. The left-wing prime minister’s wife has now been criminally charged in a ballooning corruption scandal that is engulfing the family. Unpopular with voters and losing his grip on power, Pedro Sanchez has rammed through a measure to grant amnesty to at least half a million illegal immigrants – many of them military-aged men from North Africa. He says the move will help ensure a “rich, open and diverse” future and says it’s necessary to combat the “far right.” Despite its status as a NATO ‘ally,’ Spain has been aggressively unhelpful to the United States during the war against Iran’s terrorist regime, closing its airspace to U.S. military aircraft and denying access to jointly operated bases on its soil, including for refueling. Sanchez’s government has also ostentatiously refused to meet bare minimum mandatory standards for NATO military spending, distinguishing itself as a uniquely derelict deadbeat. Spain rejected the latest consensus higher-spending threshold, having failed to even meet the previous, significantly lower threshold.  

Rather than pressuring the Spanish to pull their dead weight, NATO has carved out a special exception for Sanchez’s laggardism. Spain relies on allies for its own defense, but now that its principal security guarantor needs help, or at least nonresistance, Spain has actively impeded its war aims. Sanchez is also virulently anti-Israel, severing defense agreements with the Jewish state (which harms his own country far more than it impacts Israel) while recognizing a Palestinian “state,” vociferously embracing the Gaza “genocide” lie, and even pushing for Israel to be banned from the international singing competition, Eurovision.