It is not that Musharraf will not act it is that he cannot act , neither can any partner that may replace him .
Well, Obama might know that, and just be being polite.

Not having read this pentagon report I don't know what it had to say on the "tribal areas", but they seem to me to present the same problems as Afganistan (funnily enough) Sudan and the various other failed states. And so what exactly do you do? Because accepting that they "cannot" be governed isn't an answer. If we took that attitude Scotland would still be a howling wasteland.

Yes, well, moving on...

Behind the scenes I think there is something to be said for telling Musharraf he can't have it both ways. Either these areas are part of Pakistan, in which case can he get them into order, or they are not, in which case he can't very well complain if the US bombs them. Not that I expect that bombing will do much good, but before I get too worried about "a very very high tendancy to backfire very badly and increase support for terrorism and extremism rather than dry it up " I'd have to be persuaded that these crazies actually CAN get any more crazy. Which I am not too sure about. IIRC they have about a 2000 year history of being madmen who make a living killing foreigners, when they aren't too busy killing each other, so in this case I really don't wholly buy into the idea that its all a protest about Coca Cola, Marilyn Monroe, or 1000lb bombs. Palestinians, yes. Pashtuns, no.

What we really need is a local strong man we can arm to the teeth and get to impose some sort of rule in these areas. Hmm, sounds familiar.