Conservatives are fond of denigrating Barack Obama as a foreign policy wimp, a president determined to demonstrate American weakness around the world, one begging for dialogue with dictators, and apologizing for past American sins, real and imagined. Even if overdrawn, there has been justification for this line of criticism.

Yet there is another side of the coin, which has lately come more sharply into focus. It is not news that, in addition to pouring troops into Afghanistan for the surge,  the administration has sharply stepped up the tempo of drone attacks on al Qaeda and Taliban redoubts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, exceeding what the Bush administration was doing in this realm.