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As the Obama national security team huddles for another day on its Afghanistan strategy and troop strength, U.S. policy to Pakistan is emerging as perhaps the thornier of the Obama administration’s regional challenges.

While the U.S. actually has a high degree of control in how it shapes its presence in Afghanistan and how many US troops and civilians it deploys on the ground, in the sovereign nation of Pakistan, it must work indirectly through foreign assistance and cooperation with Pakistani civilian and military authorities to try to influence Pakistan’s policy and hearts and minds towards US interests. In many ways, the nuclear armed South Asian Islamic nation, in whose ungoverned spaces are believed to reside core Al Qaeda and its top leadership, poses the more...