Pakistan is a mess, it¡¯s making a worse mess of Afghanistan, and there is not much the United States can do directly to clean it up. This is the unfortunate state of affairs that cast a shadow over President Obama¡¯s meeting with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan on Wednesday.

The pressing problem is that the Taliban and others who espouse al-Qaeda¡¯s civilizational ideals control large and expanding parts of northwestern Pakistan. The turmoil is spreading across Pakistan¡¯s border with Afghanistan, where the Taliban has in recent years regrouped and posed a growing threat to the Afghan government and NATO forces.

The Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, is a weak leader whose venality guides his sympathies westward. He nonetheless has been too accommodating of the Taliban during his short time in power, hoping until recently that they would more or less behave themselves in exchange for a greater degree of autonomy. That policy was an extension of the false hope of Pervez Musharraf, his predecessor, who struck a peace deal with the Taliban but did not take decisive action against it when it violated the deal.

  

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