After David Petraeus was burned by transporting a Taliban impostor to “peace talks”, a new round of peace talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan with the Taliban’s participation appears to be underway. This time, there is no mention of US participation. Instead of joining peace talks, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is planning to send up to 3000 additional combat troops to Afghanistan, fearing a spring offensive from the Taliban that would wipe out claimed US progress.

On Tuesday we learned that the much-heralded “peace talks” NATO orchestrated between the Afghan government and Taliban officials had included several meetings with an impostor claiming to be Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. This news appeared to place General David Petraeus in a very bad light, as he had even been described as having “facilitated the talks by allowing Taliban officials to fly to the meetings in safety.” Little wonder, then, that the Washington Post felt obligated to engage in some Petraeus image rehabilitation. They happily did so today by trying to place the blame for the impostor on the British. The New York Times was quite happy to join in on this effort, contributing a “no comment” from British intelligence and quoting a passage from the Post article describing “the British as more aggressive than the Americans in pushing for a political settlement to end the war.”