Over homecoming weekend, a venerable and respected alumnus and buddy of mine imparted to me a timeless and startling piece of wisdom over beers at Skippers. He said, "Dude, Oxford is Disneyland. This isn't real-the rest of the world isn't nearly this fun. Stay here in this beautiful bubble as long as you can." Yeah, I was as floored by the depth and maturity of his Miami University-nurtured insight as much as you are. But after I sifted through the intricate layers of my buddy's genius, I realized he had a point. From the moment I set foot on Miami's campus way back in August 2005, the idea of the "Oxford bubble" permeated the collective psyche. The student body is both painfully aware of and willfully blind to the fact that we insulate ourselves from the rest of world. While professors constantly preach tired sermons about breaking out of this bubble, I realized last week that my "bubble experience" actually improved my ability to capture some lessons from last weeks horrific terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

My emotions after the news of the assaults were pretty much what you'd expect. Shock. Disgust. Maybe even a pang of fear. But it was sheer bewilderment that consumed me as the days wore on and the talking heads deftly shifted their attention from "India's 9/11" back to Black Friday's sales figures, the auto industry bailout and President-elect Barack Obama's transition process. I slowly realized the United States is suffering from an Oxford bubble-syndrome too. The Mumbai attacks have presented the United States with a tremendous learning opportunity and we're already happy to wave as it passes us by.

Lesson No. 1 is that even though we're more than seven years past September 11, 2001, Mumbai illustrates that international terrorism is taken for granted in the United States but remains a grave, festering problem across the globe. The attacks in India are particularly alarming for a number of reasons. First, the fact that the Deccan Mujahideen, a group of no particular notoriety, could perpetrate such a wide-ranging and well-coordinated series of attacks throughout Mumbai signals a significant growth in sophistication. Armed gunmen managed to simultaneously strike a train station, a hospital, a restaurant and a crowded five-star hotel, killing innocent bystanders and capturing hostages along the way. Indian security forces were held at bay for days by terrorists well fortified within the Taj Mahal hotel, preventing the escape of a number of imprisoned guests

The danger of the distraction of Iraq is another second, even more critical lesson that must be carefully examined. Make no mistake, I believe the stabilization of Iraq must be a chief priority for the United States-but not at the expense of our attention to our allies in the rest of the region and the world. While discussing the implications of the attacks, a friend glibly noted, "Well, I guess this means that it's time for the annual debate over Kashmir." Are you serious? There was a time when resolving the Indian and Pakistani quarrel over the disputed region of Kashmir was of the utmost importance in U.S. foreign policy. No longer. With purported links between the terrorists and Pakistani radicals from Kashmir, tensions between India and Pakistan are once again on the rise. The Mumbai attacks are an opening for the United States to foster interaction with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and especially the new, pro-American Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

This new opportunity for U.S. interaction with Zardari and his foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, could also help us reign in the protracted and oft-forgotten war in Afghanistan. Waziristan, the rugged, mountainous region of Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan, is a chronic problem for American forces. After the United States invaded, Taliban fighters fled for the mountains of Waziristan and scattered. Some even believe Osama Bin Laden is still concealing himself in this harsh terrain, and the area continues to hemorrhage insurgents into Afghanistan. If the United States can foster cooperation between Pakistani and Indian officials throughout the course of the investigation of the Mumbai attacks, we may just be able to build relationships that will help us finally win the war in Afghanistan.

Finally, we must all remember that the election of Obama has not automatically ushered in an era of world peace. Obama is inheriting a dangerous and unstable world. The incoming administration must decisively and firmly address the issue of international terror. I won't begin to suggest policies, but they must find a clear, resolute strategy and doggedly pursue it. Monday's unveiling of the new national security team signals that this will be a supreme challenge for the president-elect. Obama has made his national security sector a "team of rivals," full of high profile picks like Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, National Security Advisor-designate and former NATO commander Gen. James Jones, and Bush-holdover Gen. Robert Gates as secretary of defense. The attacks in Mumbai have shown us that Obama-comparably inexperienced in foreign policy-must quickly find a way to shepherd these big personalities toward a single cohesive objective. More power to him.

Let me conclude by confessing that I'm just as guilty as everybody else. Until the vicious attacks in Mumbai, I was happily floating in my election season bubble. Politics are my narcotic, so you can imagine what this year's election cycle did to me. I was like Al Pacino in Scarface, burying my face in a mountain of blow (the election) and inhaling pure, sweet ecstasy (the debates, conventions and controversies). It was bliss. The Mumbai attacks were my violent intervention at the methadone clinic. The same lesson should apply to the rest of the United States. It's time to wake up from our election-induced haze, take stock of the world around us and learn some hard, serious lessons.