It can't get any better than this.
Stunned by the severity of KG's February 1 strike, which marginalized their proteges in Nepal, Indian leaders at first couldn't decide whether to call their response an arms embargo.
For eight months Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, under the stern gaze of the leftist loonies backing his coalition, used words like 'non-lethal' and 'pipeline' to describe its military ties with Nepal.
All this while, rational Indians were reminding their government that, as a sovereign country, Nepal could always turn to China and Pakistan for military supplies. But, no, such counsel merited derision. The dominant view was that KG's effort to play the China card would fall flat. KG was no Ma Bi Bi Shah and Hu Jintao was no Mao Zedong.
India's loony left, having brought the mainstream parties and Maoists closer together against the palace, were infatuated with what they saw as the greatest encounter since Lenin read Marx. The taunts got thicker. Why would the Chinese want to spoil their budding ties with India over a godforsaken stretch of land between them?
Eight months later, the Royal Nepalese Army, tired of waiting for what it knew all along was never going to come, turned to Nepal's other neighbor for help. Our C-in-C returns from a visit up north with warm assurances of support.
Weeks later, KG deftly brought China into the political geography of South Asia in response to India effort to float Afghanistan to sink Pakistan.
In New Delhi, the double whammy assumes a third dimension as India's home and defense ministries wear that "we-told-you-so" scowl.
So the government faction driving India's Nepal policy -- backed by J.N.U. types dishing out all that garbage about Nepalis being ungrateful scoundrels that deserved to be taught harsh lessons every once in a while -- turns to economic coercion.
Carefully calibrated leaks suggest the upcoming trade and transit talks will be dominated by Indian lectures on the risks Nepal has invited by flouting India's security concerns.
HELLO! NEW DELHI, WE WANTED TO GET THOSE THINGS FROM YOU BUT YOU WOULDN'T GIVE THEM TO US.
