Italy's prime minister and leader of The Union, the government's ruling center-left coalition, Romano Prodi turned in his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano last week. His decision to do so came after the senate vote on his planned foreign policy program failed to pass by only two votes.
The most contentious portions of his foreign policy bill included extending Italian troop deployments to Afghanistan, totaling approximately 1,800 soldiers, and expanding a U.S. military base in Vicenza.
Most Italians are concerned with the domestic implications of Prodi's resignation. His decision could signal the return of conservative business and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, while disintegrating the nine-party coalition currently in power, leaving the leftist groups outside of policymaking circles.
At the international level, however, Prodi's decision signals the culmination of Italian dissent in particular and European displeasure in general with American policies in the Middle East and Central Asia. Prodi made good on his campaign rhetoric to bring Italian troops home from an increasingly destabilized Iraq. This discontent is matched by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to finally set forth a time table for troop withdrawal, amounting to a reduction in force deployment levels of 2,000 troops by the end of the summer.
Some may see these developments as the European equivalent to cutting and running. Rather, they should be seen as a pragmatic decision by these states to cut the losses they have incurred over the past five years in the pursuit of mollifying domestic opposition.
Prodi did not resign as the result of mismanagement, corruption, or general public dissatisfaction with his tenure as prime minister. It was not a vote of no confidence. In fact, those within the coalition who have rejected his foreign policy bill have come out in support of the prime minister staying in office (which might also have something to do with the prospect of losing power if the government dissolves).
Europeans are disgusted by the way in which the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) and its associated ground wars are being conducted. The war in Afghanistan is recognized across the board as a legitimate and worthwhile cause to remove from power a virulent and destructive regime, the Taliban, that harbored the global jihadists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
However, American policies in the GWOT, including the illegal CIA kidnapping and extradition of Osama Mustafa Hassan from Milan in 2003, have added to Italian disenchantment in affecting regime change and nation building abroad.
This all comes to the detriment of those forces on the ground in Afghanistan making the admirable attempt to develop and maintain (and, for that matter, create) governmental and security institutions capable of extending central control outside of Kabul and of neutralizing the resurgent Taliban threat in the south and east border regions.
Failure in Iraq will be seen by the international community as a misguided and contemptible U.S. bid to exert military primacy in the hopes of establishing a new world order based upon American intendance. Failure in Afghanistan, however, will truly be a blow to the more admirable aspects of the GWOT, and will give a morale boost to a reenergized Taliban with reestablished connections to al-Qaeda.
Afghan insurgents do not operate within the bounds of Western military doctrine or psychology. Relatively, they have far fewer numbers and less equipment, resources and training in comparison to NATO troops attempting to establish security in a tenuous environment. They are driven by moral (that is, their perception of morality) and religious ideology.
Continuous troop withdrawals from other states within Afghanistan and Iraq constitute a validation of their efforts and they will become emboldened even further by any success in a prospective spring campaign against cities in the south. The United States is in a dire situation indeed when it cannot count on its allies to contribute to military engagements supposedly for the benefit of all and will likely face diminishing security environments amenable to success in the face of constricting troop availability.
