this is a terrifying argument, cos it seems entirely possible

Washington's widening war in the region: self-deception.  The CIA drone program, which the Agency's Director Leon Panetta has called "the only game in town" when it comes to dismantling al-Qaeda, is just symptomatic of such self-deception. [....]

As a result, the seeming cleanliness and effectiveness of the drone-war solution undoubtedly only reinforces a sense in Washington that the world's last great military power can still control this war -- that it can organize, order, prod, wheedle, and bribe both the Afghans and Pakistanis into doing what's best, and if that doesn't work, simply continue raining down the missiles and bombs.  Beware Washington's deep-seated belief that it controls events; that it is, however precariously, in the saddle; that, as Afghan War commander General Stanley McChrystal recently put it, there is a "corner" to "turn" out there, even if we haven't quite turned it yet.

A more provocative -- and perhaps more ominous -- analogy (than between AfPak and Vietnam)today might be between the CIA's escalating drone war in the contemporary Pakistani tribal borderlands and Richard Nixon's secret bombing campaign against the Cambodian equivalent.  

By this January, there was a drone attack almost every other day. Even if, this time around, no one is using the code phrase, "the ball game is over," Washington continually hails success after success, terrorist leader after terrorist leader killed, implying that something approaching victory could be somewhere just over the horizon.

As in the 1960s in Cambodia, these strikes are, in actuality, having a devastating, destabilizing effect in Pakistan, not just on the targeted communities, but on public consciousness throughout the region.

John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School who frequently advises the military, says that an expansion of the drone strikes "might even spark a social revolution in Pakistan."

Indeed, even General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, wrote in a secret assessment on May 27, 2009: "Anti-U.S. sentiment has already been increasing in Pakistan... especially in regard to cross-border and reported drone strikes, which Pakistanis perceive to cause unacceptable civilian casualties

What happens next is the $64 million question. Most Pakistani experts dismiss any suggestion that the Taliban has widespread support in their country, but it must be remembered that the Khmer Rouge was a fringe group with no more than 4,000 fighters at the time that Operation Breakfast (bombing of Cambodia) began.

And if Cambodia's history is any guide to the future, the drone strikes do not have to create a groundswell for revolution. They only have to begin to destabilize Pakistan.....A few charismatic intellectuals like Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot always have the possibility of taking it from there, rallying angry and unemployed youth to create an infrastructure for disruptive change.

What threw Cambodia's fragile government into serious disarray ....was the devastating spillover of Nixon's war in Vietnam into Cambodia's border regions. It finally brought the Khmer Rouge to power.

Pakistan 2010, with its enormous modern military and industrialized base, is hardly impoverished Cambodia 1969.  Nonetheless, in that now ancient history lies both a potential analogy and a cautionary tale.  Beware secret air wars that promise success and yet wreak havoc in lands that are not even enemy nations.