New Slogans And Old Nonsense For New Times "No despair or hysteria" - this is the refrain the current administration in Bucharest uses when treating the event next year at Prague, where the countries to join the next NATO extension will be announced. In fact, these are the terms used to characterize the pro-NATO campaign in 1997. Let us remind it. What was the NATO campaign? Hysteria? Despair? After 45 years of communism and self-isolation and 7 years of political anemia, during which PDSR (Social Democracy Party) and its leaders have glanced to the West and held hands to the East, for the first time, Romania was re-brought in the attention of the big powers and became a negotiation subject. The EU perspective was still far away. No important decision had been made as for the EU extension and the moment Helsinki-1999, when such a decision was made, seemed at the time a Utopia. Under these circumstances, the unique possibility to rapidly connect to the Occidental circuit had become, all of the sudden, NATO. Of course, Romania had joined the race the latest and with the least chances, and the "despair" then could seem hysteria, given that for several years only declarative efforts had been made. Romania had then the possibility, at least diplomatically, to fix itself in the conscience of the Occidentals as a country that, from a political point of view, wanted to be received in the family of the Democrats. After a period of somnolence, of diplomatic indifference, a more energetic affirmation of some objectives seemed hysterical to others. But what do President Iliescu and Romanian diplomacy do not to seem desperate in front of the Occidentals and co-nationals? President Ion Iliescu is a captive bird in Romania. In half an year, no chief of state in Occident hasn't considered necessary or pleasant an invitation to the Romanian President. His only goings out were togethe