NEW YORK: The US and European officials believe that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was in an better position ‘to convince the Pakistani public’ of the need to confront the ominous Taliban threat, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

‘By and large, Sharif could be in a better position to deliver what the US wants, said a US official working on Pakistan policy.

Amidst the reports of Taliban advances in Pakistan’s Malakand region and the siege of Buner, the US officials sounded alarm with Hilary Rodham Clinton accusing Pakistan government of abdicating the government to the Taliban.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned of deteriorating US Pakistan ties if the Zardari government does not take decisive action against the advancing Taliban insurgency.

‘It is important they not only recognise it but take the appropriate actions to deal with it,’ Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters Thursday.

The WSJ said the new developments have pushed the US to contemplate a closer alliance with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in a military coup that installed Mr. Zardari's predecessor as head of government, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

The US officials believe that Mr. Sharif's long ties to Islamist political parties and leaders could position him better to convince the Pakistani public of the need to confront the Taliban.

For years, the US had kept its distance from Mr Sharif —who was in exile in Saudi Arabia —precisely because of those.

US and European officials’ confidence in President Asif Ali Zardari, who is scheduled to meet with Mr. Obama in Washington on May 6-7, is ebbing, the WSJ said.

US officials say Mr. Zardari's government has been cooperative in US efforts to increase the number of drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in the tribal areas. However, there's a growing sense that Mr. Zardari doesn't have the experience or the political support inside Islamabad to prosecute a successful war against the Taliban.

US officials noted that he appears isolated in his presidential office in Islamabad. The newspaper observed although Mr. Zardari is still the democratically elected president from a party that enjoys wide popularity in Pakistan, some Pakistani leaders have talked of changing Pakistan's constitution to weaken the powers of the presidency. Such a move could serve as a democratic vehicle for Mr. Sharif to eventually emerge as Pakistan's prime minister, many officials told the newspaper.

Last month, US special representative Richard Holbrooke helped broker a compromise allowing Mr. Sharif, who had been banned, back into the political system, though he holds no office now.

Mr. Zardari had dispatched troops to confront Mr. Sharif's supporters. US officials were concerned Mr. Zardari was seeking to wield too much personal power and that the Pakistani military would use the instability as a pretext for a coup.

US and British officials threatened Western aid would be cut if Mr. Zardari didn't back down. He did.

How the Pakistan government handles the growing Taliban threat affects the future not just of the nuclear-armed nation of 170 million, but of neighboring Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama has placed a high US priority on battling a rising Taliban insurgency on the Afghan side —and is rapidly expanding US forces there, the newspaper said.

The WSJ also said that US military officials and policy makers say that the porous border with Pakistan is one of their chief obstacles to winning the Afghan war.