MEXICO CITY – Shortly before America’s elections last November, then vice-presidential candidate Joseph Biden was widely criticized for predicting that an Obama administration would almost certainly be tested by what he called a “generated” international crisis, in much the way that the Soviet Union “tested” John F. Kennedy shortly after he assumed office. Biden did not point to a specific region of the world, but mentioned the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent, and Russia as the likeliest sources of trouble for the new president.