The theory is that Iraq is the next Afghanistan -- where, from the war against the Soviets in the 1980s until the U.S.-led coalition invaded in late 2001, at least one generation of young men and possibly two attended fundamentalist training camps.
This is political territory unknown for a generation or two, after all the last coalition that Britain had was during the dark days on the World War II, over 60 years ago.
But many of Italy's current generation of leaders, including in the new grand coalition government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta, were trained in the center-right party.