Webb must also contend with skepticism from Burma's democracy movement, both inside and outside the country.
In a commentary published by The Irrawaddy following Webb's first visit to Burma last August, U Pyinya Zawta, a Buddhist monk who played a leading role in the 2007 Saffron Revolution, criticized the senator's “ignorance of the situation in my country,” citing a passage in his book, “A Time to Fight,”
in which he appeared to dismiss the importance of this mass uprising against military rule.
“If Westerners had remained in the country this moment might never have occurred, because it is entirely possible that conditions may have improved rather than deteriorated,” Webb wrote in his book.
Like many Burmese democracy activists, U Pyinya Zawta took issue with Webb's assumption that a Western presence in Burma would somehow deliver the country from the worst effects of military rule.
But while Webb seems to regard the efforts of Burma's own people to liberate themselves from their brutal rulers as an exercise in futility, he may now be learning that his own quixotic mission to save the country from itself is falling victim to the lies and intransigence of a regime that can't be trusted.
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