It's no longer just a Trump-Meloni spat on the level of public rhetoric, but Italy is newly making clear that it is imposing real policy and limitations on the US, now clarifying that it had formally denied US use of its bases to strike Iran for past and future potential missions.
This has been a long time in coming, as Italy already clearly restricted at least some US use of its bases within the past months related to the Iran war, but now it is official.
On Thursday Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani reportedly told his Iranian counterpart by phone he firmly rejects NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte's recent claims that US forces used Italian military bases in operations against Iran.
Tajani has insisted that Italian bases were never used for any kind of offensive strikes on the Islamic Republic. According to US military publication Stripes, "The Iranian foreign minister thanked Italy for the clarification and said a clear, formal denial was necessary."
Italy of course remains a member of NATO, and so the fact that Rome was responding to recent remark's of the organization's leader is glaring, and reveals a serious inter-NATO rift.
The NATO chief had been interviewed on Fox earlier this week, wherein he claimed that some 500 American military flights had taken off from bases in Italy in support of Operation Epic Fury. Italy's foreign ministry is firmly rejecting the claim.
In addition, the Italian Defense Ministry came out and said that Rutte "has nothing to do with Operation Epic Fury" - which might explain whey he's making "completely misleading" remarks.
"Italy only authorizes flights that are provided for by the treaties and totally exclude kinetic activities," said that Italian defense ministry statement.
It seems Italy is trying to appease both the Iranian and US sides at once, by trying to shroud its role in ambiguity and abstract definitions of terms:
In a post analyzing how Italy’s bases were used to support the war, the site ItaMilRadar said this week that Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones from Sigonella “conducted extensive intelligence and reconnaissance missions over the Persian Gulf area” before the Triton operations appeared to shift to Jordan in April. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft operated from the base before and during the war, and several deployed to Djibouti to support U.S. naval forces in the Indian Ocean, according to the site.
Back in late March, as US-Israeli bombs were still being unleashed on Iran, a statement from PM Meloni’s office had also alluded to matters of procedure, stating that Italy is "acting in full compliance with existing international agreements" - while underscoring that each request must be "carefully examined on a case-by-case basis, as has always been the case in the past."
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto had also at the time confirmed that "some US bombers" were denied landing at Sigonella – one of seven US navy bases in Italy. The complaint is that the US didn't follow required permission protocol, and requested landing only while in the air and already en route to Sicily.
But the truth also is that American hegemonic action in the Middle East, and the Iran conflict in particular, remains deeply unpopular among the Italian population, which has long had a strongly anti-war bent especially among the youth.
The Guardian previously wrote, "The unpopularity of Trump in Italy has also started to erode the popularity of Meloni, who is ideologically in tune with the US president and has established good working relations with him." However, she's lately sought to distance her government from the war, having told parliament earlier this month there's a growing dangerous trend of interventions "outside the scope of international law."