It's a pragmatic calculation about Pakistani opinion. If, however non-rational, the drone strikes are causing support for the Taliban/whatever in Pakistan to grow faster than the damage done by the strikes is harming those groups, then you ought to stop digging the hole deeper and do something else.

Do something else might mean pull back, hand more loot to the Pakistan govt and hope they solve the problem.

Do something else might mean give up on the Pakistanis and escalate dramatically with US forces.

Do something else might mean a lot of things, but continuing the drone strikes and whining about how the Pakistanis _ought_ to react instead of how they _do_ react isn't very useful.

Ok, fine, there's a double standard and Pashtun villagers and Pakistani officials unfairly get angrier about a US-caused death than a Taliban-caused death. That pisses me off too. But what do you _do_ with that? Being resolute and all is pointless if your actions are actually harming you strategically.

That being said, there's certainly room for empirical debate about whetehr the drone strikes are, on balance, helping or harming US aims in Pakistan. I've seen other sources lately say that the Islamabad elites are warming up to them as they wake up a bit about just how dire their situation is.

It's pointless though to gripe that the US is getting a bum rap and that the Paks _should_ welcome our strikes. If they don't, they don't, and we're not likely to change that in the short run.