Notes on Propaganda

New EU Foreign ministry grand poobah, and former CND flunky campaigner Catherine Ashton, we are told was “getting tough” everyplace where it counts. Who’s getting the wood shampoo from the EU?

The EU's new foreign relations chief, Catherine Ashton, was hard on Iran but cautious on Israel and Russia in a lively hearing with MEPs on Monday (11 January).

Except she wasn’t getting tough with who she was “getting tough” with.

The three-hour-long event at the European Parliament in Brussels kicked off a series of 26 hearings with commission nominees that is to culminate in a plenary vote later this month on the new EU executive as a whole.

It’s different when you have to tell that to Medvedev Putin or Ahmedinejad, and not a plenary session of plenary sessionists summitting to plan a summit, to take place definitely some time in the indefinite future.

It is to be noted that this EU-3 “tough talk” routine with Iran has been going on for almost a decade, buying Iran enough time and cover to keep on truckin’!