Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has rejected calls to join the US-led war against ISIS by announcing airstrikes against targets inside Syria, saying that more airstrikes would only add to the chaos in the region.
Renzi has been facing growing pressure from the center-right opposition to join the war, and told a newspaper today that he was interested in defeating ISIS, but not just to “multiply on-the-spot reactions, without a strategic vision.”
“If being a protagonist means playing at running after other people’s bombardments, then I say ‘no thank you,'” Renzi insisted, comparing the new strikes to the 2011 NATO attack on Libya, and saying he doesn’t want a “repeat of Libya.”
Libya was expected to be a huge boost for Italy, its neighbor across the Mediterranean, with Italian companies lining up for huge business deals in post-Gadhafi Libya, only to see those opportunities dry up as fighting grows. With ISIS and others establishing presences in Libya, Italy is finding the country less a source of business opportunities and more an endless supply of refugee ships.
Maybe Italy will it have less problems with ISIS when it stops poking the hornet's nest. Might be something to take note of.
This should show the way to America.. Bombing and War is not the way to go.. Loss of even one innocent life will fuel hundreds to join terror groups…
One more country in Syria would add nothing. The important thing in Syria is to get Putin ever more bogged down. As long as HE is bombing, then things are going the right way.
Nice thought, but Syria is already worse than Libya.
Tell America and the Zionist this.
Actually, Italian oil companies did have good deals with Qaddhafi's Libya. Italy was rather reluctant to join the NATO campaign. France, Britain, the Islamists and our beloved neocon/liberal humanitarians were the driving forces behind the war on Libya. Italy felt it had to join in so that the other Euro-American-Gulf petro giants would not take all the spoils.
Italy was "camped of the saints" after Libya.
Well, I suspect the US will start funneling millions of American taxpayer $$$$ to foment regime change in Italy – so they can install their own(ed) puppet. Bets?
You are on the money *MAC*
Good man.
The prowar neocon & neolibs if there are any should join the US military if they want to fight ISIS. Matteo
Renzi is a good man.
Michael, how’d that work out for the US in the 80s, siding with the mujahideen in order to bog down the Soviets? One could easily trace where we are today back to the choices made all those years ago.