Gee and I thought we were in this all by ourselves < / sarc
I didn't know NATO still existed. If it does, what does it do?
It's important that we stay focused on NATO. That's all we got folks!
The UN is ineffective in security matters although it would like to be the lead on these issues. NATO is the only structure capable of handling these issues in a "multilateral" way where Western free world issues are dealt with. NATO is the most powerful organization on this planet (period). Competent and structurally capable, NATO can and does deal with modern security issues well when empowered and given the resources to do so - as in Afghanistan, Balkans, and today more and more Iraq.
Unfortunately NATO never morphed into an organization capable of dealing with present day threats. NATO lingered after the end of the Cold War (Clinton / Schroeder and others era) and today we have an organization designed for a "defensive" war against an enemy behind the iron curtain which no longer exists. If one really wants to be a weasel, you can make the argument that Afghanistan is outside of NATO's scope. NATO needs to evolve into something capable of dealing with the GWOT or Iran. Future threats will simply not look like the Warsaw Pact. But NATO still remains the ONLY viable security structure out there. If we choose to take military action in Iran's case, what organization could handle the job better? The UN?