Pakistan

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.

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.

In the run up to elections this spring, the complicated power struggle between Pakistan's politicians, judiciary, and military has erupted, resulting in the judiciary issuing an arrest warrant for the prime minister and the military perhaps backing a huge protest demanding the government's dissolution. If Pakistan's elected government weathers the storm, it will become the country's first to complete a full term in office -- a feat that might not be as impossible as it seems.

Two new books address exactly what happened during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Squabbling over the details, though, misses the point. What survives in historical memory depends as much on patterns of human understanding as on the arguments churning through the news cycle.