“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!