Three neighbors with nuclear weapons ... surely nothing can wrong!

I have no idea whether Osama bin Laden chose 2001 for his ghastly plan because he knew that it would be the first year in office for a newly elected US President.  Given the evils that bin Laden schemed up, it is probable that the timing was intentional.

September 2001 was not the first time that the newly elected President was tested either.  On April 1st, only ten weeks into his presidency, Bush had to deal with the Hainan Island incident that became a gripping geopolitical news story for ten days.

I think about those incidents of April and September 2001 as I follow the news stories from India about the elections and now the upcoming inauguration of a new government led by Narendra Modi.  Modi, like Bush, comes with a couple of terms of governing experience in a state, and very little of international experience.  Bush was even quite proud of his regular guy life and how he had not spent time outside the US unlike those Democratic elitists.

Modi and his people have said and done enough to make Pakistan cautiously pessimistic.  As for the other nuclear neighbor,

Modi noted that Beijing would have to shed its “expansionist policies and forge bilateral ties with India for the peace, progress and prosperity of both nations.” India has in the past complained about China’s refusal to accept Indians from Arunachal Pradesh as Indian citizens and its insistence that Arunachal Pradesh is disputed territory.

Both Pakistan and China will closely watch every move that Modi makes over the next couple of weeks.

I would think that the US Ambassador to India will be one heck of an important position at this point, not only to keep track of the goings on, but also to play the role of an intermediary should situations arise.  Oddly enough, the Obama administration did not make it a high priority to nominate anybody even though the ambassador announced her retirement back in March?

 Kathleen Stephens, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, will serve as head of mission until a new permanent ambassador is nominated and confirmed.

With this oppose-everything Republicans in the Senate, who are also sensing control of the body come November, and with the summer lull fast approaching, the US might not have a permanent ambassador until the new year?  Why the low, low priority to that part of the world?  

A nightmarish scenario could be something along the following lines: crazy militants with ties to Pakistan strike terror in India, perhaps in Delhi or in Gujarat, in order to test the new prime minister.  Modi is pushed into retaliation by the very forces that worked hard to get him elected.  

Or, China tests Modi by placing a few military feet on India's side of the border.  Modi is pushed into retaliation by the very forces that worked hard to get him elected.  

O course, all the three have enough and more nukes to settle scores.  Don't be fooled into thinking that Mutually Assured Destruction always works as a wonderful deterrent--"states waging conventional wars might escalate to using nukes."

Why worry about this, right?  It will all be rosy as was September 10, 2001.

Tomorrow is another day!