Mildly off thread comment by me on the last paragraph of the linked article:
"Unwittingly, Obama’s strategy may end up repeating the very mistakes of American policy over the past three decades that have come to haunt US security and that of the rest of the free world. In seeking narrow, tactical gains, the Obama team risks falling prey to a long-standing US policy weakness: the pursuit of short-term objectives without much regard for the security of friends. It must abandon its plan regionally to contain rather than defeat terrorism, or else an Islamist takeover of Pakistan is inevitable."
The on-thread aspect is that Mark O'neilcorrectly pointed to the why of Drones; the article points out that the application of Drone power can be quite, uh, selective -- and the quoted paragraph ties all that together with American short-termism.

Our failure to heed History and take the long view is well known. Hopefully we can do better this time. Given the callow nature and venality of many of our politicians from all parties, whether we can or will do so is worrisome.

Which gets back to Drones. A strong point is lessened cost in many aspects. Another is is their ease of use in dangerous or problematic situations.

A shortfall is that very ease of use can lead to flawed decisions and uses...