U.S. Stepping Up Operations in Pakistan.

You could call it an election gift for Pakistan's new president. Or a threat. Just a day before Asif Ali Zardari swore, during his inauguration ceremony, to protect his country's sovereignty, a U.S. Predator drone fired five missiles at a suspected militant compound near the border with Afghanistan. The compound belonged to Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the most notorious Afghan Taliban commanders based in Pakistan, and a Soviet-era ally of the CIA. The Predator strike missed Haqqani, but it did kill four mid-level Qaeda operatives, government and militant sources told the Associated Press. It also killed some eight children, one of Haqqani's wives and a sister-in-law. [. . .]

"The U.S. should make it openly clear that [it] cannot wait for Pakistan to [take decisive action], and will have to treat Pakistani territory as a combat zone if Pakistan does not act," wrote military scholar Anthony Cordesman of Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies last month. "Pakistan cannot both claim sovereignty and allow hostile non-state actors to attack Afghanistan, [and] U.S. and NATO/ISAF forces [there] from its soil."

Read More