San Franscisco Chronicle
If all roads lead to Rome, why is Barack Obama avoiding Italy on his tour of key allied capitals?
Did Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's tongue-in-cheek endorsement of John McCain rankle the senator?
Why risk alienating nearly 25 million Italian-American voters in swing states? One would think that Barack had learned his lesson after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright imbroglio. But then, Sen. Obama never expressed any outrage when his former pastor characterized Italians as "garlic noses" and oppressive Romans hell-bent on lynchings and apartheid.
On a geopolitical basis, however, Obama's exclusion of Italy is as foolhardy as it is myopic. According to the senator: "France, Germany and the United Kingdom are key anchors of the transatlantic alliance and have contributed to the mission in Afghanistan, and I look forward to discussing how we can strengthen our partnership in the years to come."
And what is Italy? Chopped fegato? (Ironically, according to a recent opinion poll of Western Europe conducted on behalf of Britain's Daily Telegraph, 70 percent of Italians would vote for Obama in the 2008 presidential election.) Has the senator forgotten the plethora of American bases in Italy: Aviano, Crotone, Sigonella and, of course, Naples - site of the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet?
As a Mediterranean power, NATO bulwark and peacekeeper par excellence, Italy has impeccable military credentials on the ground, in the air and across the high seas. Moreover, Italian diplomacy is both sinewy and nuanced, having effectively jaw-jawed with such pariahs as Tehran and Pyongyang.
Italian troops have helped to keep the peace in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And Italian soldiers have shed their blood in both of these forbidding lands.
The Italians currently lead the multinational contingent keeping the peace in Lebanon (in the aftermath of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah).
Because Italy enjoys good relations with both Israel and the Islamic world, it can engage in shuttle diplomacy that could jump-start the two-state scenario for Israel and the Palestinians.
In 2009, Italy will host the 35th annual G-8 Summit in La Maddalena. Prime Minister Berlusconi may well use this occasion to remind his fellow G-8 partners - and the next American president - that the Italians have a noteworthy record when it comes to conflict resolution and peace. To that end, il Cavaliere can proffer the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius: "Arm yourself for action with these two thoughts: first, do only what your sovereign and law giving reason tells you is for the good of others; and second, do not hesitate to change course if someone is able to show you where you are mistaken or point out a better way."
Rosario A. Iaconis is the vice chairman of the Italic Institute of America.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
1 comments:
Gentlemen,
You have both missed the mark…again. Like Ronald Reagan in the 80s, Barack Obama uses the force of his personality to great political advantage and like President Reagan, Obama is a profoundly naïve man whose knowledge and grasp of world affairs that are of importance to the US today and in the future amount to nothing more than well-worn clichés. He doesn’t speak Arabic, Mandarin, or Pushtun and knows nothing about the history and culture of these language groups. Why is this important? Because the focus of American foreign policy is, or should be, Asia. Dazzling Europeans is akin to entertaining close, and naturally tolerant and polite, family members. Preaching “the war in Afghanistan must be won” has all the profundity of stating my children must go to college. Particularly since we loosing in the short term there and have no chance of obtaining a satisfactory agreement with the Taliban in the long term. The Chinese, whose chauvinism and nationalism are galactic in scale, will run the table on Obama in Asia carrying out their long term policies, both political and economic, on Taiwan, Japan, and Australasia. In short, they will have the young upstart for lunch because they don’t respect him. Forget about the Kruschev/Kennedy saga in the 60s, where the canny Russian tried to sandbag a young president; the Chinese leaders are not the dimwits that Kruschev was. They may, however, have a modicum of regard for a man who has spilt his own blood in combat, spent years as a prisoner of war, and is of a certain age and experience. It’s a big if.
For Rosario, Obama hasn’t the foggiest notion that the politics and history of Europe are one and the same and, as such; Italy (Rome) should have been his FIRST stopover. I would be willing to bet 100$ that he thinks Napoleon was French.
Post a Comment