The Pakistan Policy Blog

the report by Daniel Markey is really interesting and very moderate and thoughtful by US standards. An interesting aspect of it is that he seems to have softened up his position on targetted strikes at Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. In May, he said:

“Of course, there are red lines that Washington shouldn’t allow Islamabad to cross. Above all, Washington cannot let an imperfect deal get in the way of an all-too-rare shot at arresting or eliminating top al Qaeda leaders who have found safe haven in the rugged terrain of the Pakistani-Afghan frontier.”

But in this report he says:

The long-term costs of a bilateral rupture between Washington and Islamabad are
likely to outweigh the potential gains from eliminating nearly any al-Qaeda leader.
Decisions to eliminate specific terrorist cells must therefore be weighed against the
plausible stresses they will impose on the U.S.-Pakistan partnership

Interesting!