Italy is the strategic center of the Mediterranean.  The U.S. Sixth Fleet is headquartered in Naples, and with Muslim radicals taking over the southern and eastern shores of the Med, Italy is once again Europe's defensive line against chaos and instability.

Which is why Europe is panicking about Italy's unprecedented political chaos, triggered by comedian and mass agitator Beppe Grillo.  (See our previous columns.)

Two weeks ago, Grillo led  his mass personality cult -- "The Five Star Party" -- to a shocking 24% of the Italian vote, the biggest party vote since Mussolini received 25% in 1922.  Now the polls show an additional 3% for Grillo.  New elections are slated for June, and a huge political brawl is exploding to expose Grillo for the remarkable nutcase he really is.  The Euromedia completely failed to report on Grillo before the election, and now they are trying to make up for lost time.

In response, Grillo is threatening "violence in the streets" unless he gets what he wants. What does he want?  "We want 100% of the Parliament, not  20% or 25% or 30%. When the movement reaches 100%, when the citizens become the State, the movement will no longer need to exist. "

Which sounds too much like the horrific past, and all of Europe is finally paying attention. It might be too late.  We will know in June, with the next elections.  The new campaign is therefore in full swing, with many Italians feeling panicked. Rumors of terrorist attacks and street riots are rife.  Other Europeans are looking on, like passing gawkers at a car wreck.

Grillo is one scary guy.

Yes, Beppe Grillo is not Benito Mussolini, as we are told over and over again.  For one thing, he's a lot fatter.  Duce was a grandiose, swaggering narcissist.  Beppe Grillo is the same.  Duce's followers were a delusional mass movement.  Grillo's followers look the same.  Duce used the mass technologies of the 1920s, the radio and telephone.  Grillo uses Twitter and YouTube.  Duce thrived on scapegoating imaginary enemies.  Grillo does the same.

Beppe Grillo isn't exactly Mussolini, but then 2013 isn't exactly 1922, either.

But Grillo is a certifiable nut, and the evidence is all over the web in spite of his efforts to scrub it.  Grillo's private internet partner, his "guru" Casaleggio, owns a large web business and is said to run Grillo's Five Star Movement.

Grillo and his Guru started fourteen years ago, when Beppe published his "Message to Humanity" (yes, check it out).  They have used the last fourteen years to recruit a mass cult through the internet, with the usual mix of grandiose and Armageddon fantasies.

According to Grillo, AIDS doesn't exist, vaccines will kill you, and the Holocaust never happened.

Big Pharma is out to get you with chemotherapy, and natural treatments (like bloodletting) are better than that awful scientific medicine.  The world is run by Jewish bankers like the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, and those blessed Islamic banks give out free money.  Not like the usurious Jews, who want to kill off all their customers.

The latest story is all about "moon cups," designed to eliminate tampons from feminine hygiene forever.  Yes, you can now watch a YouTube video promoting a new tribute to mother Gaia.

Something of a public breakthrough happened when a businessman named Henry Sassoon resigned from Casaleggio Associates.  Sassoon wrote a letter of explanation to a major newspaper, Corriere della Sera.  He felt that he had been defamed by bloggers, but he failed to say that his partner Casaleggio is deeply involved in driving those paranoid blogs.

In fact, Casaleggio's business website contains a page with Armageddon fantasies from Philip K. Dick, the science fiction writer.  Apparently the guru believes that Philip Dick had the power of prophecy, complete with near decimation of the human species.

All of which would be just news from the loony bin except for the hard fact that Grillo's cult received 24% in the election.  Like it or not, Beppe Grillo is now a permanent fixture on the Italian political scene.

As we reported before, Grillo's Iranian wife has high-level connections in Tehran, where making trouble in Italy is high on the priority list.  Grillo has said that "everything I know about the Middle East I learned from my father-in-law," the Iranian bigshot.  (Nasratollah Tajik just died in Tehran at the age of 83.)

Oil money is buying influence all over Europe, just as it has in the United States. How the Jews could be responsible for trillion-dollar Arab oil regimes run by Islamist fanatics is not explained by the Grillini.  But then logic is not their strong suit.

Today, Europe is still reeling in shock.  The Europeans are rubbing their collective eyes, trying to figure out what happened.  The Telegraph and the Wall Street Journal have seen deep flaws in the euro currency for years, but the delusional left is having a hard time realizing the mess they have made. Again.

Naturally, they are blaming saner folks -- a habit we have seen over here, too.

In the June election, Grillo could shrink to the usual size of movements like his, to a big sigh of relief from all of Europe -- or he could increase his support from more frustrated voters.

Nobody knows for sure what will happen.

Italy may be teetering on the edge.

Southern and eastern  Europe is in distress, and amazingly similar fascist movements are arising for the first time in sixty years.  The other shores of the Med are afire -- North Africa, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt.  Outside powers like Iran and the Gulf Arabs are financing Islamist militancy in Europe and Africa.  Islamist reactionaries are winning in Egypt, Syria, Libya, and the rest.

America has kept the balance for sixty years, and today there is a vacuum.  But the fate of the world still comes down to an alliance of civilized nations.  If America fails, some other center of civilized power will have to take over.

Are there any takers?