http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio#Allegations
Gladio has been accused of trying to influence policies through the means of "false flag" operations: a 2000 Italian Parliamentary Commission report from the Olive Tree left-wing coalition concluded that the strategy of tension used by Gladio had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI (Italian Communist Party), and to a certain degree also the PSI (Italian Socialist Party), from reaching executive power in the country".
Propaganda Due (aka P2), a quasi-freemasonic organization, whose existence was discovered in 1981, was said closely linked to Gladio.
Notice that 'P2' may also be implicated in some of the internet research involving the Niger documents scandal involving the falsification of evidence leading to the Iraq invasion.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/22/7563/12283
On July 4, 2005 the news broke that the Genoan police had arrested two leaders of a Neo-Fascist, unofficial, self-proclaimed "anti-terrorist" network operating parallel to SISMI in Italy. The group recruited police and intelligence agents to their cause. Saya and Sindoca created the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies (DSSA), which reportedly had ties to the Bush administration as well as Isreal. One of the two leaders - Gaetano Saya - affirms he is a member of P-2 (Propaganda Due) on the DSSA website. A website which also
says:
The evil which has descended upon us finds in men like George Bush in America and Gaetano Saya in Italy an impregnable bulwark: God-fearing men, harded and pure individuals who, enlightend by God, have descended into the valley of the shadow of death to defend the Judeo-Christian faith and the West. The righteousness which these men represent will defeat the anti-Christ. God is on their side.
Also, a somewhat related neo-fascist organization called the Grey Wolves exists in Turkey, which has been linked to the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II (who once said that Christianity and Communism may have something in common), the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, and CIA-connected arms for drugs trading in Bulgaria.
I believe that the bottom line in the Middle East is that, left to their own devices, oil resources would become nationalized and many on the Far Right would then fear that socialism would take root. With their Judeo-Christian 'god' on their side, they would defeat this threat by whatever means are necessary, even if preemptively.
God help us!