Prodi gears up for Iran...And gets his way afterall....

[Flabbergasted]

Resignation now reassertion for Italy's prime minister
By Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writer
2:38 PM PST, February 24, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-prodi25feb25,0,2214738.story?coll=la-home-world

Romano Prodi, forced to resign last week as Italy's prime minister, will try to reassemble his government in a bid to rescue the nation from crippling political chaos, officials announced today.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/21/italy.vote.reut/

Beyond Afghanistan, where Italy has 1,900 troops on a NATO-led mission, one of the most divisive issues has been a plan to expand a U.S. military base in northern Italy.

[Vidar]

1. I wish Prodi well.

[madfloridian]

2. Not sure..

what you mean by Iran. Didn't he get their troops out of Iraq at the end of last year? I have read several articles, and none of them clear about Iran. What do you mean by he "gears up.?"

I found this article of interest..

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=248

Doing what our country should be doing...opening a dialogue.

[Flabbergasted]

3. Smoke and Mirrors. Prodi is working on supporting the US

especially by keeping and adding NATO troops to Afghanistan. Once we have attacked Iran, Afghanistan is going to be in big trouble without more troops hence Bush and McCain's statments this month about there being a "big offensive with the Taliban."

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detail/Italy_s_Prodi_scrambles_for_support_as_vote_looms.html?siteSect=143&sid=7563002&cKey=1172428676000

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21285093-2703,00.html

[madfloridian]

4. I am still not sure what you mean.

I give up trying to understand. I posted about Hillary's main strategist working for Berlusconi, which concerns me because that's another country's elections. Seems we've been doing a lot of that lately. Too hard to keep track.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3132038&mesg_id=3132038

There is a lot more about Berlusconi, and PSB at European Tribune, linked at Booman Tribune.

http://www.eurotrib.com/

And a more detailed link here from about the time of the elections.

http://www.eurotrib.com/user/de%20Gondi/diary/2

I said in the DU link above that Prodi apparently wants to keep troops in Afghanistan. I did not ever get the impression he is going along with attacking Iran.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding.

[Flabbergasted]

5. Maybe I wasn't clear. I believe that an increase in NATO troops

has three purposes

1. Obviously to stabilize Afghanistan
2. To get NATO more involved
3. Allow more freedom for the US to move troops around and still have a force capable of peacekeeping.

This will have a cumulative effect such that as things get worse NATO will be forced to get more involved.

Plus you got to ask the question why expand the US base in Italy? Actually I'm still wondering. Son of Star Wars installation?

On the other hand I could be wrong. I'll look a little more closely.