Between one attack and another centered on the substantial accusation that Italy is marginal and a vassal of Trump’s USA, a protest with brawl-like tones by the so-called broad front against the Meloni government takes place at the joint Foreign Affairs Committees of the Senate and Chamber at Palazzo Madama, under the presidency of Stefania Craxi, FI senator, who leads Foreign Affairs and Defense in the Senate.
While the world keeps turning, and despite a phase of new serious dangers, with Khamenei’s fall, as Craxi told reporters before the session, a new great page of freedom could open in the Middle East comparable to what the fall of the Berlin Wall represented in Europe. At the center of Giuseppe Conte and his Five Star Movement’s concerns is the Maga hat in hand, in Washington, (as an external observer to the Board of Peace for Gaza) with which the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Antonio Tajani, was pictured. There is the entirely private presence for family reasons (which did not prevent him from continuing his work, he assures), but coinciding with the US and Israeli attack, of the Defense Minister, Guido Crosetto (present at the hearing yesterday) in Dubai. This would prove Italy’s marginality, attacks the PD secretary, Elly Schlein, who was not present in parliament but was in Turin’s square for the No vote in the Justice referendum, via video link.
This is the clash staged yesterday by an opposition that remained practically silent, lacking any gesture of empathy towards the young people, women, and the Iranian people who have been celebrating since Saturday in Tehran and Italian squares for the fatal blow dealt by the USA and Israel to the leadership of the ayatollahs of the bloody Iranian regime. Courageous and isolated are the voices on social media expressing solidarity with the celebrating Iranians from former PD parliamentarian Anna Paola Concia and the other reformist democrat, Pina Picierno, Vice President of the European Parliament. Authoritative left-wing voices targeted by Five Star trolls and left-wing netizens on social media without not only the leadership but even other PD members intervening in their defense.
But it is a fact that (with the exception of Matteo Renzi and Carlo Calenda) the opposition found itself very embarrassingly objectively alongside Russia and China in the furious attack on Trump “for respect of international law.” Between one somersault and another, they tried to shield themselves with the position of British Prime Minister Starmer, critical of Trump. And with the condemnation of the ayatollah regime recited in a notarial tone as a due act. The opposition of PD and Five Stars is already divided on aid to Ukraine, not just in words, but in parliamentary votes with Conte’s Five Stars voting no, like the Vannacci faction, while Matteo Salvini’s League, always insulted as pro-Putin, voted yes this time too.
But let’s return to yesterday’s clash. Tajani responds sharply to Conte, who accuses him of following everything the USA asks for. Sparks fly. “I have nothing to be ashamed of, I was never called Tony or Anthony by Washington, while you, Mr. Conte, were called Giuseppi by Trump. I, honorable Conte, have never gone on my knees to Merkel or Trump,” strikes the blow the Foreign Minister, who had vainly asked for “unity and responsibility” in such a difficult moment. But from Maduro’s overthrow in Venezuela to the beheading of the ayatollah leadership, these are times of the return of anti-Americanism on the left in the name of anti-Trumpism and anti-Meloniism, prejudicially in foreign policy.
In the end, President Craxi, daughter of statesman Bettino, “sadly notes that the appeal for a serious and responsible debate, made at the opening of the Commission’s work, was largely disregarded.” She explains: “I wanted this meeting urgently and determinedly, finding immediate availability and a consistently correct attitude towards Parliament from ministers Tajani and Crosetto, also to update on what is being done to protect our fellow citizens.” Craxi lashes out at Five Stars, PD, and the entire left: “Faced with a crisis that does not concern a single government but affects international security and Italy’s responsibility in the world, one would have expected a debate worthy of the seriousness of the moment. Instead, a shortcut of easy polemics and crude propaganda was chosen by part of the opposition, by the usual mannerist populists, with jokes and stereotypes that added nothing to the understanding of the facts and did nothing to alleviate the concerns at stake.” A sad epilogue: “A precious opportunity for a high and shared reflection was thus sacrificed on the altar of low-level confrontation. It is a choice that does not honor Parliament nor strengthen the role of institutions, precisely when it was necessary to demonstrate restraint, a sense of state, and responsibility towards the country.”
It was Craxi herself who emphasized that “none of our European Union partners had been warned” of the attack on Iran. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the interview with Sky Tg24 last night began precisely by saying that the violation of international law started with Putin’s attack on Ukraine. Indeed, precisely Ukraine, for which Conte’s Five Stars said no to aid. Then, the problem would be the Maga hat in the hand of our Foreign Minister. And Crosetto stuck in Dubai. Iran highlights even more strongly the great black hole of the broad front: the absence of a common foreign policy, without which there is a lot of shouting, but no credibility for a real government alternative.
