by Alessandro De Pascale
At the Council of Ministers held on Wednesday in Rome, it was a difficult day on the international front for the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni (born in Rome in 1977), the first female Prime Minister in the country’s history. Since the previous Tuesday night, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, who has explicitly requested to be called ‘the president’ in a view of power considered exclusively masculine, has been seriously grappling with the escalation of the ongoing war between the State of Israel and its regional enemies. She was particularly worried about how the ongoing conflict in the Middle East affected the country that Meloni has governed since 22 October 2022. This is the most right-wing government in the history of unified republican Italy. From the early hours of that Tuesday, the Minister of Defence of her right-wing government, Guido Crosetto, was dealing with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) again. This is the UN peacekeeping force that was set up in 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of the Israeli occupier from southern Lebanon.
Italy has 1,200 troops in southern Lebanon as part of UNIFIL, making it the second largest contingent after Indonesia. While these foreign soldiers were previously on the front lines trying to demilitarise the border and create a ‘buffer zone’ between Hezbollah and the State of Israel, they now find themselves in an area of conflict against their will. Their loved ones and families are understandably worried and are currently putting pressure on the Italian armed forces’ general staff. When the Lebanon/UNIFIL situation reaches the desk of the current Italian Prime Minister, it’s already at the highest level of urgency: ‘Alert Level 2’, the second-to-last level before the entire contingent deployed abroad is evacuated. As I said before, this is all part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, which Minister Crosetto has admitted has not been very successful.
On Wednesday, the Italian Minister of Defence told the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committees of the Chamber of Deputies that both Hezbollah and Israel have ignored United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 for years. This resolution only allows UNIFIL armed forces and the Lebanese army to be in the area between the Litani River and the Blue Line. It seems that not only have Hezbollah fighters stayed in the area, but it also looks like they’ve seen the weapons that Israel is trying to destroy. It seems they couldn’t do anything about it. Minister Crosetto told the relevant parliamentary committees that this failure has happened because UNIFIL can only operate with the Lebanese Armed Forces and couldn’t get involved because the Lebanese army is too weak.
The reality is that since the conflict intensified in the area of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah and Israel, the Italian soldiers have had to suspend all external activities and retreat to underground shelters. To put it another way, they’re waiting in bunkers for it to pass. If we had to evacuate, it would take 24 to 48 hours just to get the personnel out and a week to bring the equipment back to Italy. However, this isn’t something that can be decided on a whim, as it’s a UN mission involving troops from 46 countries, as we’ve already mentioned. That’s why the Italian government and Prime Minister Meloni have raised the issue at the UN right away. On Wednesday morning, as the current G7 president, she got the dossier and had a quick call with her counterparts from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France. During the call, President Emmanuel Macron, who wanted to handle the Lebanon issue on his own for historical reasons, passed the baton to his Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné.
On Thursday, the Italian Minister of Defence, Crosetto, told the newspaper La Repubblica: ‘I’m anti-fascist and have always been so. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea on the right. Schlein? She seems like a decent person to me. I’m talking about the leader of the opposition, who has been heading the Democratic Party (PD) since 12 March 2023. Crosetto’s political career also took him to the court of the Knight of Arcore Berlusconi. He was already Undersecretary of Defence in Berlusconi’s fourth government and later co-founded the Brothers of Italy party with Meloni, which emerged from the ashes. He was also part of the National Alliance, which was led by Gianfranco Fini. Fini was a minister and vice-premier in the administration of the creator of Italian private television. He was also a protégé of Pino Rauti, who was the historical secretary of the Italian Social Movement Fiamma Tricolore. This was the first fascist party in the history of the Italian Republic, which is anti-fascist in its Constitution and bans any form of apology for fascism.
Crosetto was born into a family of Piedmontese industrialists and left university to join the Christian Democracy party (the dominant party of the so-called ‘First Republic’). In 2020, he stepped back from politics to focus on the defence sector. He was appointed president of Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN), a company set up as a joint venture between Fincantieri and Leonardo. OSN specialises in high-tech systems for military ships and integrated weapon systems management. He was also appointed president of the Federation of Italian Companies for Aerospace, Defence, and Security (AIAD) of Confindustria and Senior Advisor for the Leonardo group in 2014. Leonardo is the Italian state giant in the aerospace and defence sector, which emerged from the ashes of the previous Finmeccanica bribery scandal in 2016.
On the cover photo, Guido Crosetto, Italy’s defense minister @Alessia Pierdomenico/Stutterstock.com
