Pick your metaphor. The United States has "taken off the gloves" or U.S. officials are playing "good cop-bad cop." Either way, there is no denying that relations with Pakistan are on a downward trajectory, with Washington making increasingly stronger charges of double-dealing against Pakistan's army and intelligence agencies (although the White House has sought to walk back some of the more aggressive charges in the past several days). Given the urgency of resolving the conflicted relationship between the two nominal allies and the implications for Afghanistan's development, South Asian stability, counterterrorism, and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the absence of imaginative thinking on U.S. Pakistan policy has been pretty remarkable. Which is what makes the recent back-and-forth over at FP's Shadow Government blog so interesting.

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