intrigue

My thesis from last night—to wit, that Giuliana Sgrena's increasingly fantastic accounts of her encounter with US troops are aimed not so much at the United States as they are at Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi—remains speculative. It is what I would be scheming, were I an amoral Italian communist, but that hardly renders it definitive.

Nonetheless: Berlusconi is under tremendous pressure, as evidenced last weekend by his summoning of the US ambassador, generally a signal of diplomatic crisis. He is, moreover, facing regional elections next month, and if the Left can maintain a full head of anti-American steam the results will likely not bode well for his government.

Yet there still seems a hitch. The modern Left tends to regard any form of nationalism as fascism resurgent, and capitalizing upon the death of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari does indeed require appeal to the fading phenomenon of Italian patriotic feeling. Not to underestimate the serpentine guile of unreconstructed Marxists, of course, but note that said patriotic feeling must be stirred on behalf of a spy. Isn't that just a wee bit of a stretch?

Perhaps not so much.

[T]he death of Mr. Calipari, while using his body to shield Miss Sgrena from U.S. fire, has sparked deep anger and could cost the prime minister in regional elections at the end of this month.

In the past, the Italian left detested the security services, notorious for skulduggery and links to the neo-fascist right, but since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left has idolized men like Mr. Calipari, who spent most of his career as a police officer in his native Calabria fighting organized crime. He transferred to the military intelligence service just two years ago.

Then there's this:

Mr. Berlusconi won plaudits last year when Mr. Calipari obtained the release of two young volunteers kidnapped in Iraq known as the two Simonas, also through payment of a multimillion dollar ransom.

That money reputedly came not from the state, but from the personal fortune of Mr. Berlusconi, a media magnate who is Italy's richest man.

I hadn't encountered that last detail before. So good to know that one of our most steadfast European allies has personally contributed to the rise of the Iraqi kidnap-for-profit industry, c'est ne pas?

[Or whatever the Italian version might be: after all, I only learned to sing in that language.]

Scary thoughts. If we take a hard look at any of our European allies, it is enough to trouble anybody. Have allies always been so unsteady? So scary?

Not always.

But I don't expect our relations with Europe to improve—except perhaps with the Eastern European states, which will continue to look our way as a hedge against an increasingly grumpy Russian bear.