Guess who won't be joining the European Union anytime soon.
by Gerard Baker
Weekly Standard (Subscription required for full story)
EVEN BY THE EUROPEAN UNION'S own standards of vaulting futility, the charade it will inaugurate on October 3 will be especially pointless. On that date, to great fanfare, the European Union will formally launch accession negotiations for Turkey. Heads of government will speak solemnly about this historic opportunity. Officials will lovingly pore over sheaves of paper that map out Turkey's route to membership inthe European club at some unspecified moment in the future. Scribes of a romantic disposition will celebrate the great merger of East and West represented by the bridging of the Bosphorus.
This being Brussels, seat of the fantasy empire of geostrategic make-believe, no one will be so impolite as to point out the absurdity of the occasion. But the truth is Turkey has as much chance of joining the European Union as John Kerry has of winning a recount in Ohio. It isn't going to happen.
Merv!