The Obama Administration’s default policy in central Asia has always been to make additional demands on Pakistan. That policy looks to be escalating once again, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is demanding Pakistan “do more” to control the flow of militants along their border with Pakistan.

The comments come amid repeated US demands, most recently made earlier this week, for Pakistan to launch a military invasion of the North Waziristan Agency. Pakistan has launched several such offensives at the behest of the Obama Administration, but none of them has accomplished the sort of victory officials hoped, and each has ended with a demand to attack another agency.

Still, the policy is clearly picking up, and Pakistan looks as though it is already being fashioned into a scapegoat to explain why the false US claims of “progress” in the war aren’t actually resulting in any drop in violence.

For Pakistan the demands are a lose-lose situation, as giving in to US demands is only going to further cement the view that the Zarari government is a puppet regime, and declining the US demands is only going to raise the rhetoric against them from Washington, where officials are already openly talking about the need to invade Pakistan.

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