Obama Lifted Drone Rules to Hit Pakistan

Despite President Obama’s overhaul of America’s drone-war rules in 2013, he continued to hold different standards for strikes on Pakistan. Obama said targets around the globe must be imminent threats to the U.S., but loosened those restrictions in Pakistan with a special waiver—which some say led to the deaths of two Western hostages in a strike this January. Addressing the tragedy last week, however, Obama called the mid-January strikes “fully consistent with the guidelines under which we conduct counterterrorism efforts in the region.”