Karzai to accept a run-off. Here’s Obama’s statement. Here’s UK PM Golden Brown’s. I note Brown saying “It is vital that the new Afghan Government has legitimacy in the eyes of its people.” I was surprised to read Bob Gates appearing to diminish that concern, but if you read through the guts of the piece that quoted him, he was making a more anodyne point.

I simply cannot read a statement by a man named Gordon Brown about a country known for its opiates without immediately thinking of this song.