On November 26, the Financial Times published an extravagant encomium to Lady Catherine Ashton by its Brussels bureau chief Peter Spiegel, under the headline “EU foreign policy chief Lady Ashton comes of age in Iran talks.” Spiegel reported, “her team returned from negotiations in Geneva to a standing ovation . . . from EU ambassadors for their part in clinching a historic deal to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Ashton, to give her full title, had indeed been a star of the Geneva smile-a-thon with the Iranians. Spiegel wrote further, “It is not merely a one-off success, but the high point in a six-month stretch that began with the unexpected deal she brokered between Kosovo and Serbia in April, paving the way for two former foes to normalise relations.” The so-called “Kosovo agreement with Serbia,” crafted in Brussels, was much less expansive than indicated by Spiegel, and attracted little American attention. It was hardly greeted with such enthusiasm by the parties involved, least of all on the Kosovar Albanian side.