By Francesca Astorri

Why Italy went from kissing Gaddafi’s hand to bombing Libya? What has changed in Berlusconi’s priorities and strategy to make him shift from a partner position with Libya to an enemy one?

“Italy went from kissing Gaddafi’s hand to bombing the country not for its own choice, but because Italy had the clear perception that there was no other option. It was a reaction to the initiative taken by our allies, first of all the French and the British, then also the American,” said Lucio Caracciolo, Professor of Strategic Studies at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome and Editor-in-Chief of Limes, a leading Italian geopolitical newspaper edited by Repubblica Editor, told the Peninsula in an exclusive interview.

Caracciolo said: “Italy doesn’t have a strategy of its own in this war. The conclusion of the Italian Government was “if we don’t intervene now, France and the UK will never leave us anything” but in this way Italy has lost in any case,” he added.

Caracciolo explains that whatever end this war in Libya will see, Italy has lost it: if Gaddafi gets defeated, Italy will lose a commercial and political partner with which Italy used to have a privileged relation; if Gaddafi wins, Libya will never trust Italy again, targeting the country as a traitor and blacklisting it,” said Caracciolo.

Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister, agrees with Caracciolo: “Italy goes to a net loss on the strategic front. Italy lacks the ability to invent a new policy,” said Prodi in Washington where he was presiding over the second international conference “Africa: 53 Countries One Union”. “Whatever the final outcome in Libya, Italy has nothing to gain,” added Prodi.

Even France doesn’t have noble reasons for its intervention in Libya. In Caracciolo’s opinion, Sarkozy is missing a real consensus in the country, next year France will have to vote, and Sarkozy’s strategy was to gain some credit by building an international alliance. So basically, the French domestic politics that led France into Libya is dragging the rest of the allies with it.

Talking about the allies’ unity in this mission in Libya, Qatar is seen by its western allies as an “ambitious, active and resource-rich” country.

Italian domestic politics and lobbies see losing more than gaining business from this war in Libya. Italian economic lobbies’ life and trade are based on political relations or, as Caracciolo said, “Italian companies do business through politics”, so they hoped that this Libyan adventure was not going to happen.

Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Eni (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi), Italian oil company with a 2010 net income of 6.3bn euros, said that the company has not faced negative effects from the war in Libya, because the losses were compensated by the rise in oil prices. But the panorama will change drastically if the fighting in Libya contiues in 2012 and the oil price drops off to 70 dollars per barrel.

In the end, with no noble start up reasons to this war and with no happy ending options, the best prospect in Italy’s point of view is to “accept a partition between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania” said Caracciolo.
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