Good news — qualified, that is — on Afghanistan, from the BBC:

Nato foreign ministers meeting in Brussels have endorsed a plan to expand the alliance’s role in Afghanistan.

It will involve deploying 6,000 more troops in the south of the country, a third of them expected to be British.

But…

Our correspondent says that to ease the concerns of some member states, it is being stressed that the troops’ mission will be to promote peace and stability, and not to hunt down members of al-Qaeda and the Taleban.

That will remain the job of the US-led operation Enduring Freedom.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands will lead the expansion of the alliance’s forces to the south of Afghanistan but more troop contributions will be needed before the plan is implemented.

Even though al-Qaeda used Afghanistan as it’s HQ under the Taliban, and threatens Europe just as much as it does the U.S. (Madrid, London, Theo Van Gogh?), Americans have to do the really hard work… as usual.