Fatima Bhutto: US Should Cut Pakistan Off

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is going to Washington next week to seek billions more to combat terrorism and keep the troubled nation afloat—and the Obama administration should swat away his outstretched hand, says Fatima Bhutto, estranged niece of Zardari's slain wife, Benazir Bhutto. "No amount of money, especially in the hands of a famously corrupt government, is going to help Pakistan stave off terror," she writes in the Daily Beast.

Pakistan has more suicide bombers than Iraq, a flourishing Taliban imposing Sharia law, and a leadership so corrupt that citizens now call Zardari "President Ghadari"—Urdu for "traitor." George W Bush gave Pakistan $10 billion to fight terror, to no discernible effect; meanwhile, the Taliban is able to insert itself into poverty-stricken areas by bringing what the government isn't: schooling, medical camps, and generators. For Bhutto, what Pakistan needs isn't cash, but a government that does its job "less leisurely." (More Benazir Bhutto stories.)