Obama Curbed Pakistan Drone Strikes

Great reporting from Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball about the Obama administration’s debate over CIA (and maybe Joint Special Operations Command) drone strikes in Pakistan against senior al-Qaeda leadership:

One person standing in the way of expanded missile strikes: President Obama. Five administration officials tell NEWSWEEK that the president has sided with political and diplomatic advisers who argue that widening the scope of the drone attacks would be risky and unwise. Obama is concerned that firing missiles into urban areas like Quetta, where intelligence reports suggest that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and other high-level militants have sometimes taken shelter, would greatly increase the risk of civilian casualties. It would also draw protests from Pakistani politicians and military leaders, who have been largely quiet about the drone attacks as long as they’ve been confined to the country’s out-of-sight border region. The White House has been encouraged by Pakistan’s own recent military efforts to root out militants along the Afghan border, and it does not want to jeopardize that cooperation.

Hosenball makes clear that none of that implies the drone strikes will end, or even that they won’t expand in the future. But the White House appears to have shifted the burden of proof onto strike advocates to demonstrate why a given strike will kill more enemies than it creates.