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ROME: Italy is paying a higher political price than other Nato partners for keeping troops in Afghanistan, but analysts say the cost of withdrawal would be even greater for Rome and its closest allies.
Prime Minister Romano Prodi, already forced to resign briefly last month over foreign policy, including the Afghan mission, still faces major tests on the peacekeeping issue.
The Taliban are piling pressure on Prodi by holding an Italian reporter hostage and demanding Rome withdraw its forces.
Closer to home, leftist senators who oppose the mission will vote this month on a bill financing Italy’s 1,900 troops there.
Keeping troops in Afghanistan may seem unnecessary given that Italy has a smaller contingent than even the Netherlands and operates in the safer, western sector of the country.
But military strategists and political analysts say any meaningful pullout would ostracise Italy from its allies abroad and anger moderates at home.
From a military perspective, the size of Italy’s contingent belies its strategic importance, they say. Withdrawal would leave a gaping hole in an already understaffed force so far unable to defeat the Taliban.
“Italy is essential,” said Colonel Christopher Langton, defence analysis head at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. “If Italy were to pull out now, another nation would have to start from scratch in a new area.”
Italy’s force is divided between Kabul in the east and Herat in the west. It heads a regional command in western Afghanistan, with US, Spanish and Lithuanian troops under its command.
It also heads a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Herat, where the military components aim to ensure security for civilian-led reconstruction and anti-narcotics efforts.
NOT LIKE IRAQ: Although Prodi made speeding Italy’s pullout from Iraq one of his first tasks when he became prime minister in May, his support for the Afghanistan mission has been unwavering, despite polls showing most Italians want the troops to come home.
Prodi’s arguments are mainly political. He says Italy will not abandon Nato or equate the Afghanistan mission, which has UN backing, to the ‘go it alone’ Iraq war.
Italy also has a unique connection to Afghanistan, whose former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, who now holds the symbolic title of “Father of the Nation”, spent decades in exile in Italy before returning home in 2002.
For Antonio Satta, the brigadier general heading Italy’s regional command in western Afghanistan, withdrawal would also be difficult from a military perspective.
“It wouldn’t be like pulling out of (Iraq),” he told one paper. “There, we turned the mission over to an Iraqi brigade that had two battalions. Here ... there isn’t anybody yet who can take charge of the area assigned to the Italians.”A Nato source said any reduction of Italian troops would be a major setback for the mission, already short of troops. Italy provides the bulk of forces in Regional Command West.
“That is a large area and is already under-manned ... the point is, the west is relatively safe because they are active in it — if they weren’t, it wouldn’t be,” the source said.
FUTURE OF NATO: British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants allies to send more troops. Nato allies have refused and Italy is one of them.
Analysts say Nato’s inability to secure enough troops has already created a de facto, two-tier alliance — with Italy in a second-tier that shuns the heavy military engagement.
Even partial withdrawal would deal a blow to Nato and raise difficult questions about its usefulness after the Cold War.
“The mission is sort of a coalition of the willing anyway, even though it says Nato. There are some members who effectively opted out of doing the heavy lifting,” said Michael Williams of the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“So I think it would be a pretty terrible symbolic blow … What’s the point of having Nato there if the allies aren’t really going to remain committed?”
—Reuters
