According to a local media report, it will be spring at the very earliest before Pakistan finally yields to U.S. pressure and deploys troops to North Waziristan to wipe out the infestation of Islamic militants who use this treacherous tribal area as a launching pad for attacks on Nato troops in neighboring Pakistan.

The latest reason offered by Islamabad is that Nato’s target 2014 pullout of combat forces in Afghanistan may trigger a rethink by militant groups. The government also believes there may be a potentially positive outcome from Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s Washington-sponsored peace plan. But the biggest stumbling block is India’s proposed military support role in Afghanistan and the threat from its potential seat on the United Nations Security Council.

The first argument is extremely unlikely in its outcome; the second too optimistic that militants would leave their “natural” home in the event of a settlement; and the third is an on-going excuse for keeping a close eye on its arch rival.

Pakistan, riled by President Obama’s support of India’s accession to the nuclear club, is engulfed more than ever in its fear of its neighbor. While there are incursions across the line-of-divide from Kashmir down through Punjab and into Sindh provinces, there is no immediate threat of a large-scale invasion by India. That means there is strategic wiggle-room to deploy more boots and guns to the escalating problem in Kyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as North West Frontier Province).

Why this hasn’t happened so far is partly because the Islamabad government has faced escalating heated public fury over C.I.A. drone attacks , which have inflicted civilian casualties and are viewed by an increasingly anti-American public as a violation of sovereignty. Citizens also resent the leadership’s alliance with the States, whom many see as waging a war on Islam despite the U.S. insistence to the contrary. Added to that, Pakistan’s elite doesn’t want to appear to be a pawn in America’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. It recently threw a tantrum at Washington for its constant demands for clearing out North Waziristan and is now rebuffing all pressure from the Obama administration – including the C.I.A.’s drive for more drone attacks against the Afghan Taliban council hiding in Pakistan’s eastern city of Quetta.

Just as importantly, Pakistan’s leaders have much to gain by allowing the operatives and sympathizers to Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban to remain within its borders. Politicians believe the leaders of these groups will hold political sway in Kabul after Nato forces draw down (whether that’s 2014 or later). Pakistan desperately needs influence in Afghanistan to enhance its geopolitical footprint and give counterbalance to an aggressive India.

That’s why the Islamabad government has bluntly told President Obama it’ll run on its own timeline for any major operations in the northwest. That is most certainly longer than six months from now, and for the ease of an excuse, it’ll continue to play the line about limited military capacity.

In fairness, Pakistan’s military is juggling several live grenades at once – 140,000 of its troops are trying to hold the ground they largely purged of militias during last year’s offensives in Swat and South Waziristan. It is also assisting the ongoing relief effort for the one million people still severely affected by the summer floods, the aftermath of which is causing ripples of social unrest countrywide. And, of course, until the heated ire between India and itself drops a few degrees, Pakistani forces will be predominantly eastward-facing.

To top it all, the onset of winter in this wild, merciless mountain region would make a campaign unwinnable right now, as the U.S. and international forces have learned painfully well just the other side of the Tober Kakar Range.

But the hard fact remains that even once the extremists emerge from their caves where they ride out the season’s elements, there will be no significant reduction in militant numbers nor an end to attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan until Pakistan’s executive leadership gives the orders for a sweeping operation in what is often called the world’s epicenter of terrorism.

It’s political willpower more than military might that prevents Pakistan from doing what needs to be done.