After two women trying to inoculate Pakistani children against polio were shot this week, some news accounts were quick to place blame: “Anti-polio workers started being attacked after a Pakistani doctor, Shakeel Afridi, ran a fake polio campaign in the city of Abbottabad to help the United States track down Osama bin Laden,” reported NBC News. The World Health Organization, which employed the women — one of whom died — reports that 18 of its workers or their bodyguards have been slain since last July. Actually, Afridi’s campaign involved vaccination against hepatitis B, not polio, but that distinction has been lost amid...

  There’s pathos in the image of Imran Khan – cricketer extraordinaire and the descendant of Pashtun warriors – lying immobile in a hospital bed after an accident on the hustings, tweeting frantically that vote-rigging might have cost him victory in the Pakistani elections. His victorious opponent, Nawaz Sharif, isn’t making life easier for him, suggesting that Mr. Khan abide by one of cricket’s central tenets and accept defeat graciously. Mr. Khan has never been known as a gracious loser. But then again, he’s rarely needed to be. One of cricket’s greatest all-rounders, he’s had far more practice at being a gracious winner. His greatest...

There is reason for hope in Nawaz Sharif‘s victory in the recent Pakistani elections. Sharif, who has twice served as Pakistan’s prime minister, has said he wants to build a more robust democracy, revive the country’s shattered economy and end the military’s 40-year domination of its politics. He has also promised to improve relations with India and take on the radical Islamist terrorism that has tormented Pakistan. The United States should assist him in every way possible to achieve those goals. But there is also ample reason for caution. The U.S. has a long history of “betting on the come,” of...