War? Italy Stands with the US No Matter What… to Count More in Europe

by Stefano Vaccara

I’m with America even before I know what America's going to do." This was Silvio Berlusconi's declaration during the election campaign that carried him to victory in May, 2001. And that line from the current head of the Italian government - perhaps sounding like some kind of a joke, and from the point of view of some theoreticians of foreign relations probably even an absurdity - in light of the events of the past two years it may turn out to be the veritable enunciation of a new "doctrine": the "Berlusconi Doctrine." Well, what would be wrong with that? All the American presidents coin foreign policy doctrines, why shouldn't the man who governs the fifth economic world power? And sometimes these doctrines aren't only spoken but also applied. That's what President Bush is doing in Iraq right now with his, the one now called "the doctrine of preemptive action". He articulated it in a speech to the West Point cadets less than a year ago.
But Berlusconi? Was he joking or serious? Will Italy, at least as long as he is in the government, really stick with Bush's America no matter what? In October 2001, when the cinders of the World Trade Center were still smoking, in the Rose Garden at the White House, we heard the Italian Council President (extremely moved on the occasion of his first official American appearance) pronounce these words: "the United States is the principal bastion of liberty." This was a very powerful declaration of moral support for the U.S. from the head of the Italian government. A statement that a few weeks after September 11, obviously was in the spirit of the Europe that was saying "we're all Americans." But after only a few months it didn't seem so convenient for a politician to espouse this support, at least in terms of electoral returns in Italy. In fact, these days the "Berlusconi Doctrine" could be a grave popularity handicap for a politician in Italy. It should also be noted that Berlusconi is from the media enterprise world, and therefore keeps a constant eye on the latest approval polls. How many Italians would identify today with the words Berlusconi said at the White House in that autumn of 2001, "the United States, bastion of liberty?" Few, percentage-wise, at least according to the recent polls. But Berlusconi didn't only say these things after September 11th, he also said them when the war in Iraq broke out (though more quietly).
It's enough just to look at the polls that show the Italian public's distrust of the American motivations behind Operation Iraqi Freedom, to understand why certain Pro-American positions are unpopular. Two out of three Italians are against the war. According to a poll published in Corriere della Sera ten days before the war broke out, 70% of Italians were absolutely against it. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of Italians is suspicious of the "Berlusconi Doctrine," and on top of that, does not want to stick with America, especially now that it "knows what America's doing."
However, Italian public opinion has not managed in the end to torpedo the "Berlusconi Doctrine" out of existence. Maybe the allied troops that conquered Baghdad got there just in time? Or maybe those pronouncements during the electoral campaign and then at the White House, maybe they weren't only for convenience? Maybe they were convictions outlining a precise foreign policy line to hold to: never go against the United States.
But does this "Berlusconi Doctrine" perhaps mean obediently carry out directives from on high in the White House? Or do these speeches and declarations mean not only that Italy "is with" this American government, and fully agrees with its strategies, but that these strategies also protect Italian national interests, especially within Europe. When Chirac and Schroeder in Berlin last January presented that neo axis that Rummy Rumsfeld called "the old Europe," it was the head of the Italian government himself who formulated the response (at least according to journalistic sources), the document signed by the Eight in support of the U.S.
In that fight, was the point of contention the U.S., or was it the internal balances of Europe that were being defined by enlargement and the new Constitution? We recently asked the EU Ambassador to the UN exactly this question, in a panel discussion at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, John B. Richardson, obviously in perfect diplomatic style, but with a touch of British irony, confirmed that he also had strong suspicions about this. On that same eve of his first visit to the White House, in October 2001, Berlusconi declared that "for an enduring peace we must dig terrorism out of its nests and hit all the countries who defend it or protect it”. The English prime minister Tony Blair also spoke in terms of a "second phase" at that time. In other words the war wouldn't be over with victory over the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the eventual capture of Bin Ladin. Berlusconi's and Blair's lines already, back then, seemed to be in agreement with American foreign policy, lines that later we would see made explicit in the enunciation of Bush's "doctrine of prevention." The second phase would arrive 17 months later, with the attack on the Saddam Hussein regime. But does this second phase end with the elimination of Saddam's regime, or does it continue? For the Bush administration we know it continues. And for the "Berlusconi Doctrine"?
It's true; there have been plenty of times when public opinion has applied pressure against the tenacity with which Berlusconi has defended this Americophile position. Giuliano Ferrara's Il Foglio (the influential daily with close ties to Berlusconi, and partially owned by his wife, but that while supporting him doesn't often miss an opportunity to lob harsh criticisms at the government) was best of all at pointing this out. This is what Il Foglio writes about the silence of the majority on the subject of Anti-American attacks from the left. In a scathing March 25th editorial they accuse all the parties in the Berlusconi government: "What use are Forza Italia, AN, UDC and Lega? None, or almost none, in circumstances when they should show some backbone, a speck of political and civil feeling, do!......it’s not that the parties in the government are divided, they are just useless."
In this case, on the part of Il Foglio, there was also a desire to encourage Berlusconi not to renege on his doctrine when besieged by his own allies. This attack certainly contributed to stirring things up. Sandro Bondi, a leader in Berlusconi's party, had admitted: "The government's positions are not simple and to be taken for granted, so much as labored and problematic." And it is also from Bondi's lips that we learn of a fundamental, rather intricate, snag: "to reconcile the determined alliance with the United States, and Church doctrine." That is, how can a conservative Italian politician take sides with Bush without going against the Pope? The media effect of this line is evident: very few people on the right want to bring up, openly, on television or anywhere else, the contrast between the anti-war theory and the anti-USA theory. In other words at certain times, there's no one there at all to defend the "Berlusconi Doctrine," not even Berlusconi himself, who in the first weeks of the war kept a low profile, almost out of embarrassment. However, after the allies' advance on Baghdad, the leader of the Italian government was back on the same track he had been on for a long time: first and foremost, we stick with America.
With ultra-proeuropean Renato Ruggiero being thrown out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the parenthesis of Berlusconi's interim period, and the recent appointment of the extremely loyal Franco Frattini, it was highlighted, for those who had not already understood, that the direction of Italian foreign policy was being guided by Palazzo Chigi alone, and not influenced by the parties, not even the majority parties. And the neo minister Frattini, since he first stepped onto the international scene, has firmly followed the Pro-American line, the Atlanticist line and the Pro-European but anti Paris-Berlin-axis line of this government.
And the opposition? "It's against the Americans even before it knows what they're doing" is a good paraphrase of the attitude of certain important exponents of the Italian opposition toward the latest events in the Middle East crisis. And not only from the "maximalists" misinterpreting millions of rainbow sheets hanging from the Italian balconies - not out of ingenuous and spontaneous pacifism, but out of a desire to stir up Anti-Americanism for electoral purposes. They've even reached the point of hoping the war won't be short but long, almost another Vietnam, to teach the "Yankee imperialists" a lesson.
But this was the left, while the statues of Saddam were still standing. Now, something is changing. To get a better idea of what the left is like now, we advise reading the interview in the April 9th La Repubblica with the last Council President of the left, the current vice president of the European Constituency, Giuliano Amato. The statesman who was left out of the electoral race against Berlusconi lays out how one can perfectly easily be against this war, without compromising the irrevocable friendship that binds Italy with Europe to America.
"It struck me how easily the Italian left moved from a no to the war, to our country not being a friend of the United States. While over here it was setting up protests on bases, Schroeder was giving it the shaft, aware of the fact that it's one thing not to participate directly in a war that you don't agree with, which a friendly country is waging, but it's another thing to disown a friend." Amato points out the roots we and the U.S. have in common and observes: "The left has lost them, and lost contact with reality, as their fights about legislation or on the military bases show." This is Amato. But will they listen to him?

The analyst

La Palombara: “He Won the Bet, But…”

Joseph La Palombara is an expert observer of Italian issues at Yale University. I had already spoken with him about Berlusconi’s “bet” in Europe, and he said that the Italian government's supporting Bush's War on Iraq could be a win for his government - if theWar was short. But if the conflict was long and bloody, the bet would be miserably lost, with devastating consequences on the Italian term at the head of the EU.
Professor, about that bet on the war placed on the “roulette” of Europe, did Italy win it or lose it?
“Well yes, Silvio Berlusconi has won his bet, but it will almost certainly turn out to be a Phyrric victory. To be sure, George Bush welcomed Berlusconi's public support, which certainly counted for more than that of, say, Micronesia or other tiny and obscure members of the so-called coalition against Iraq. But no one in Washington, beginning with the president himself, ever believed that, given Italy's internal political situation, the government would be able to offer much more than moral support, and, of course, the use of American bases. It will therefore remain to be seen what, if any, rewards, material or other, will be the pay-off to the Prime Minister in appreciation for his support. It is also worth pondering whether, in winning his wager vis-a-vis the United States, Berlusconi has not also paid the price of reducing Italy's stature and influence on the Continent, and within the European Union”.
SV