South Asia

For the second time in less than six months, polio vaccine workers in Pakistan have come under fire. For the gunmen, killing health care workers has been seen as a legitimate response to a nefarious extension of Western power. And, for the CIA, faux vaccine campaigns have sometimes been justified as part of the war on terror. Both sides are wrong: denying or providing health care should never be an instrument of statecraft.

As recent protests indicate, Indians increasingly believe that their government is letting them down. New Delhi's faults -- criminalism, cronyism, and corruption -- are well known. Less understood is that these problems result from positive developments, that they will get worse before they get better, and that the solution is not less democracy, as some have suggested, but even more.

This week, the Pakistani government is set to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new elections. The outgoing administration made more progress toward institutionalizing democracy than many expected. Even so, the army is not ready to go quietly and is crafting its own plans for the country's future.

Instead of continuing their endless battling, the United States and Pakistan should acknowledge that their interests simply do not converge enough to make them strong partners. Giving up the fiction of an alliance would free up Washington to explore new ways of achieving its goals in South Asia. And it would allow Islamabad to finally pursue its regional ambitions -- which would either succeed once and for all or, more likely, teach Pakistani officials the limitations of their country’s power.