The massacre Tuesday at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, is likely to set off a new round of fighting between the country's army and the Taliban. But the attack may also push U.S. President Barack Obama to renew the counter-terrorism partnership with Pakistan that has deteriorated since the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
The latest U.S. intelligence assessment is not pretty. It predicts more Taliban attacks in response to the Pakistani military's expected retaliation for the murder of at least 130 students at the school for the children of army officers.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban (TPP), Muhammad Khorasani, has said that the attack on the school itself was in response to the campaign launched this summer by Pakistan's military against the Taliban in the provinces that border Afghanistan. He also grimly warned that the carnage at the school was "just the trailer," implying that a cycle of massacres may just be beginning.