Sunday evening marked perhaps one of the most significant moments in recent Pakistani history, as the government gave in to a growing protest movement and agreed to restore ousted Chief Justice Ifthkar Muhammad Chaudhry to power. The opposition, which only hours earlier was facing threats of prison, is now engaging in talks with officials to resolve a crisis that left most of the nation under emergency rule.

This might seem to be an oddly inappropriate time for the United States to start lobbing missiles, but that’s what they did. Two missiles fired into North Waziristan by US drones killed at least five people.

Just days earlier, another barrage of US missiles killed another 24 people in the Kurram Agency: roughly the same time as the opposition was beginning its historic march. The US strikes then, seemingly oblivious to the internal turmoil that threatened to tear the Pakistani nation asunder, nicely bookended the entire situation and underscored that no matter how much changes in another nation, the ever-escalating US attacks remain omnipresent.

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