[Mb-civic] Keeping US, Italy link afloat - Raffaello Pantucci - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Keeping US, Italy link afloat

By Raffaello Pantucci  |  April 14, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

FEW AMERICANS will have noticed this week that they have lost another 
reflexive European ally. Those few who have noted center-left leader 
Romano Prodi's extremely narrow and still contested victory in Italy 
will fear that we are about to watch as the election result in Italy, 
like Spain before it, equates to a chilling in a previously solid 
bilateral trans-Atlantic relationship.

But policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic have long suspected that 
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's position in Italy was untenable. On 
the national stage, the billionaire TV-magnate's claims of success with 
the economy have been regularly undermined by facts on the ground, and 
on the international stage he brought Italy to war with him in Iraq 
against the wishes of roughly 70 percent of the populace.

Added to this, Berlusconi's personal troubles (his election campaign was 
shadowed by corruption investigations), and his oratorical gaffes 
(during the campaign he compared himself to Jesus and Napoleon, and 
swore celibacy until after polling day) made him a somewhat irregular 
ally. From Washington's perspective, Berlusconi was a staunch American 
supporter who vigorously led his nation to support America in Iraq and 
was rewarded with the honor of speaking before the joint houses of 
Congress. He was very vocal in both his support for President Bush's 
policies and his personal admiration of the man.

His opponent and victor, former president of the European Commission 
Romano Prodi, can seem the polar opposite both in style -- Prodi has the 
nickname ''Professore" while Berlusconi proudly sports the nickname 
''Cavaliere" -- but also in substance, offering a platform on which he 
has made it clear that he will withdraw Italian troops from Iraq. The 
question is whether Prodi will be able to keep his more hard-line 
left-wing coalition partners in check and prevent them from hijacking 
the rhetoric of the Italian withdrawal and spinning it in the 
international press to reflect their anti-Americanism.

Berlusconi was always going to withdraw the troops anyway, but the 
difference is that Prodi's withdrawal will sever the main physical bond 
between US and Italian foreign policy, without Prodi having the 
political capital within his coalition to be able to find other pillars 
to sustain the wider Italian-American relationship. To US policy makers 
this scenario sounds a great deal like the one that played out when 
center-left Spanish leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero defeated 
pro-American leader Jose Maria Aznar, an election that heralded in the 
current situation where Prime Minister Zapatero and President Bush have 
yet to communicate with each other.

Luckily Italians were spared the atrocity that acted as a spark for 
Zapatero's victory; however, even without a bombing in Italy ahead of 
the elections the same end result is still nevertheless possible. Yet to 
allow Italian-American relations down this diplomatic path is neither 
necessary nor advisable. Not only would the United States lose another 
European ally, but Italy will find itself going against the grain of the 
gradual warming in trans-Atlantic relations championed by new German 
Chancellor Angela Merkel. This outcome could be avoided as long as both 
sides step back from the heated rhetoric that could follow an Italian 
withdrawal from Iraq in the wake of Prodi's victory.

On the Italian side, Prodi could emphasize his strategy of a ''phased" 
Italian withdrawal: one that envisages replacing a military force with a 
civilian presence concentrated on aiding Iraqi reconstruction. 
Washington would benefit from recognizing the fact that the United 
States can ill afford to lose another ally in Europe in such a manner. 
While Spain has remained a relatively fringe player in Europe, Italy has 
been a core member from the days of the European Coal and Steel Community.

There is little more that Washington can do at this point beyond being 
prepared to work hard to keep avenues open that may become more hostile. 
Prodi needs to be careful that he does not allow the latent 
anti-Americanism of Italy's far left to inculcate itself too deeply into 
Italian foreign policy and be sure that he handles the Italian 
withdrawal from Iraq with great care.

Raffaello Pantucci is a research associate in the Europe Program of the 
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/14/keeping_us_italy_link_afloat/
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