One thing that does confuse me about this last-minute Turkish objection is: Why did not the USA and other key NATO countries do private discussions with all NATO members to get their support ahead of time before giving Sweden and Finland the green light to start their application process domestically?
Now Sweden and Finland are committed domestically to NATO it is a lot easier for Turkey to get their pound of flesh than if there were private discussions ahead of time to get Turkey to back this. This entire affair seems like a very bad diplomatic strategy on the part of the USA.
Except Turkey is in a worse position now, Finland and Sweden have gotten security guarantees from USA, UK and several other countries. It means that Finland and Sweden can just outwait Erdogan, and Erdogan will find that his negotiation position is worse right now.
Perhaps I am missing something. Are these guarantees bound by treaties?
Treaties like constitutions are glorified toilet paper, they only have the value a country put into it. A security guarantee is the same. Sweden and Finland were already under the EU security guarantee, and everyone expect USA to also intervene in case of a war. The reason NATO membership is important for the two countries, is to increase Finnish and Swedish military integration and make it harder for Russia to make the mistake to think that attacking them would not result in major war. The fact that F&S have decided to join NATO and everyone except the Anatolian goatf****r have accepted it, mean they can start integrating their militaries with neighboring NATO countries and the security guarantee simply makes it more clear to Russia that a war would have disaterous consequences.
As for Erdogan the 69-degree-chess grandmaster, who are running his economy into the ground and dependent on EU subsidies and loan, something the two NATO candidate countries can veto, he's likely gone in a year.
