About Those Destabilizing Air Strikes (II)

The New York Times quotes the head of Pakistan's ISI as saying that U.S. military action is indeed destabilizing his country:

The Pakistani officials suggested that Al Qaeda was replenishing killed fighters and midlevel leaders with less experienced but more hard-core militants, who are considered more dangerous because they have fewer allegiances to local Pakistani tribes.

Al Qaeda was using sophisticated Web sites and sleeper cells across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia to enlist young fighters who were less patient or inclined to plan and carry out far-reaching global attacks and who had instead redirected their energies on more immediate targets and on fomenting insurgency in Pakistan, the officials said.

As mentioned earlier, this is the trade-off we appear to be making: risking longer term instability in Pakistan in exchange for destroying al Qaeda's ability to launch global attacks. It's a delicate, dangerous balancing act.