Steve Clemons, a foreign policy expert affiliated with the centrist New America Foundation, said the drone campaign started as a way for Obama to prove as toughness toward terrorism while he ended the Iraq War and strived – not successfully yet – to wind down the conflict in Afghanistan. But over time, the power to kill alleged terrorists at no cost to American life has lured Obama, the Pentagon, and the CIA to expand the campaign to new lands and to lower-level operatives.