Neither of the two leaders whom President Obama met in Washington yesterday inspires confidence. Neither President Asif Ali Zardari nor President Hamid Karzai is fully in control of their armed forces, let alone their countries, and both men have been tainted by allegations of corruption. It would be easy for sceptics to argue that the aid packages to Afghanistan and Pakistan currently before the US Congress should be hobbled by unrealistic benchmarks. That, however, would be a mistake.
There are two aspects to Pakistan's problems - the Taliban's strength in the tribal areas and the state's weakness. If it is true to say that government in Islamabad has been undermined by a succession of military dictators, Mr Obama should do everything he can to support the development of a mature and viable polity in Pakistan. This is the logic of a bipartisan proposal by Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar to provide $7.5bn over five years in economic as well as military aid. In the Bush years, this money went unaudited into the pockets of army generals, who became substantial landowners and businessmen as a result. Some of the money landed up in the hands of the very militants the Pakistan army is now battling in Swat, Dir and Buner.
But one cannot simultaneously argue that it is a good thing for Washington to belatedly invest in the crumbling infrastructure of the tribal areas, while at the same time undermining its democratically elected president with talk of his impending demise. Not everyone in the administration has realised that the current level of hyperbole in Washington about Pakistan (that it is within "six months" of collapse, or that its nukes are loose and within al-Qaida's grasp) works against US interests. It should seek to bolster a democratic consensus for Mr Zardari not undermine it.
The Pakistani president will need all the support he can get, if, as appears likely, the army is about to mount a full-scale assault on Taliban positions in Swat. First, it could already be prompting the largest wave of refugees since partition. Second, the assault by an army which relies on heavy artillery will be bloody. The militants are dug in around the main town Mingora and prepared for battle. But they, too, have seriously overplayed their hand by turning their guns against policemen and, by inference, the state itself. The public mood has further been hardened by the words of the pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammed, who branded Pakistan's much fought for supreme court as un-Islamic. At least it is comforting to know that Washington does not hold a monopoly of the misjudgments.
The Taliban is making its fair share of blunders as well.
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