A couple folks point out the contradiction in seeking international consensus to pressure the junta and declaring China beyond persuasion. You're right. I regret having put such a fine point on it. Chalk it up to the nature of the medium. There is some hope the dynamic in ASEAN will change in a way that brings the Chinese around. It is a slim hope, but worth keeping an eye on, especially as opinion is developing in Indonesia – ASEAN's indispensable member. Having said this, however, I confess to being uncomfortable with allowing the Chinese to determine the ceiling on international efforts to bring about democratic change in Burma or anywhere else. We can continue to seek an international “consensus,” even if it must exclude China. In the end, the junta has no interest in being swallowed whole by the Chinese.

Regarding a point made by Ms. Callahan, I don't agree that if sanctions were effective, they would already have worked. The problem is, as Sen Webb himself has pointed out, that the world has been half sanction, half engagement. The question is which way we go under the circumstances. I do agree wholeheartedly that there are no easy answers. And I appreciate the comments regarding the breakdown of ceasefire agreements. Very insightful. I’m always reminded of the situation along the borders when someone references the role the junta plays in safeguarding regional stability. In fact, perpetual war along Burma's borders is bad for regional stability.

As to Mr. Tonkin's contention that the junta made a "strategic decision" in 1988 to open up in the same way that Vietnam did in 1986, I would argue that if the opening was contingent on a response from the West, it wasn't "strategic," but tactical. Vietnam made a long-term calculated commitment to reform for its own reasons, not because it was encouraged to do so by the United States.

Mr. Tonkin makes a couple observations about elections in Burma that I also take issue with. Regarding the 1990 elections, I think you may be buying the regime's post-election-loss revisionism. Even its own election law described the purpose of the election to elect a parliament, as opposed to a constitutional assembly. If drafting a constitution was its sole purpose, one would think that would have been clear at the time. All concerned agreed on the need for a new constitution; that doesn't mean the elected parliament was not intended to take power and govern. Regarding the 2010 election, its not for nothing that commentators, analysts and foreign leaders have routinely referenced a bar on Suu Kyi's participation. I'm not going to parse meaning of the junta's 2008 constitution as if Burma were today a country run according to the rule of law. There is something nonsensical about that. Suffice it to say that there are multiple ways the 2008 constitution can be used to keep her from any office — not only the references to her family. And, of course, if she's imprisoned at the time, the question is moot.

Finally, Mr. Tonkin's applause for Secretary Clinton's declaration that America is back in Asia is quite a non-sequitur. President Obama's Burma policy is to date no different than Bush's. Even if it were to follow Sen Webb’s lead, either the timid version he floated in the NYT or the more ambitious version he may harbor, I don't see how that would mean the U.S. is "back.” In fact, we never left. President Bush was at times inattentive to Southeast Asia. And for that I was critical of him. But he certainly never abrogated America's commitment to the region.

Thank you for your lively commentary on Sen. Webb's visit to Burma. I'm confused by some of your points, and would like to suggest to you and Sen. Webb caution regarding strategies to break Burma's 20-year-old political deadlock.

You argue that "engagement by Burma’s neighbors has been no more effective" than economic sanctions. Of course it has — Burma's neighbors have accomplished THEIR goals (teak, natural gas, gold, rubies, jade, cheap labor, etc.). There is no reason to assume ASEAN members have the same goals as the US. And indeed, you affirm this in the next sentence. Engagement has in fact worked just fine for them. Not for the Burmese people, but they are really not what the other member states feel responsible for. I and probably you wish they did, but they do not and will not for the foreseeable future.

RE: "The truth is the Chinese will never bring meaningful pressure to bear on the junta," two questions: First, why on earth would China pressure the SPDC to transfer power to a US-friendly Suu Kyi? What China might be interested in seeing is greater security in rule of law and property rights, given its pending massive investment in pipelines. But I cannot imagine the circumstances in which China might see its national interest furthered by installing on its southern border a democratic regime that will realistically be quite dependent on US and the EU for advice, development aid, and military and security assistance.

Second, if you've given up on China as a lever of influence, it is hard to see how "the answer lies in building the necessary international consensus to pressure" the SPDC into reform. If China is not on board, no amount of economic pressure will budge the generals. Not to mention Russia and India. Moreover, what about Thailand? That's Myanmar/Burma's number one trading partner. The whole greater Bangkok region is very dependent on Burma's natural gas for its electric power.

Perhaps most importantly, all this fuss over Webb's visit is obscuring the fact that Burma's 20-year-old ceasefire agreements with mostly ethnic minority former insurgents are on the verge of collapse. Thousands of Burmese are fleeing to China from a military crackdown on one of those groups in northern Shan state. Buildups by both the army and many of the ceasefire groups' forces are underway throughout the borderlands. These are the events of the last week that will most likely shape Burma's future, while a few years from now, Webb's visit is as likely to be forgotten as have been interventions by a dozen or more foreign dignitaries who have tried to broker a political deal. Millions of ethnic minority Burmese — civilians, not partie to the conflict — could find themselves right back in the middle of war zones, and lose everything they've worked to rebuild after two to four generations of warfare ended after 1989 (the date of the first ceasefire agreements). It must be terrifying right now to live in one of those regions.

And to Mr. Feenstra, Aung San Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, was assassinated in 1947 by a group of right wing politicians led by U Saw, some six months before the country even became independent from British colonial rule. This junta had its genesis some 40 years later (1988), and can in no way be held responsible for Aung San's death.

Finally, I want to suggest that there is no easy way to promote human rights and human development in Burma. If it was as easy as you suggest to build "the necessary international consensus to pressure" the junta, it would have been done under either Madeleine Albright or the axis-of-evil, outposts-of-tyranny Bush administration. Despite a lot of theorizing, rumors and conspiracy theories about how the SPDC functions, we still know very little about it. As a result, whatever tools we manufacture to try to influence or bully the regime are based on typically quite flawed assumptions and questionable evidentiary bases. How can we say that sanctions or other kinds of pressure, or, for that matter, engagement will "work," if we don't know the most basic details about regime dynamics? When we don't know how the regime works, all we can do is fashion big hammers to hit what has proven to be a very elusive nail.

1. He sees the answer to Myanmar's problems "in building the necessary international consensus to pressure it [the regime], not abandoning the effort." But then, a few lines lower down, he acknowledges that: "The truth is that the Chinese will never bring meaningful pressure to bear on the junta." He might have included Russia, India, the other nine countries of ASEAN and every other country within a 2,000 mile radius of Myanmar as well. He has indeed himself explained why there will never be the international consensus he seeks. So why, in all logic, does he propose the impossible?

2. He argues that the Burmese leadership has never made a strategic decision like the Vietnamese to reform its economy and open up to the world. He seems to have forgotten that this is precisely what the regime did in 1988, when they opened up the country to tourism and foreign investment and replaced their "socialist" with a market-oriented economy. But it was Western Governments who decided that sanctions and ostracism were the preferred policy, and what a shambles this policy has produced, with Western influence now reduced virtually to zero. In Vietnam, meanwhile, the Communist Party remains supreme and the country a one-Party State.

3. He laments the ban on Suu Kyi's participation in the 2010 Elections. What ban? Under the 2008 Constitution she is ineligible to be considered for the Presidency because she has two sons who are not Burmese nationals (though they once had dual nationality, British and Burmese). However, there is no nationality bar on her standing as a candidate for any of the elected Assemblies. The 1990 Elections were not to a governing Parliament, as Suu Kyi herself acknowledged in her July 1989 interview with AsiaWeek: "Whoever is elected will first have to draw up a constitution that will have to be adopted before the transfer of power. They haven't said how the constitution will be adopted. It could be through a referendum, but that could be months and months, if not years." How right she was!

4. He does not accept that American sanctions have given Chinese investment and interests a leg up. I venture to suggest that he is in a marginal minority of informed opinion. The US never expects to have anything like the same interests in Myanmar as the Chinese, for obvious geostrategic reasons, but the Burmese needs the US, India, Russia, Japan, the EU, Australia, Canada and the ASEAN countries to balance China's overwhelming influence, and as seen from Europe (I am British) we can only applaud Secretary of State Clinton's message during her recent Asian visit that the US is back in Asia.

So I would say that Mr Lohman's own assumptions are pretty shaky. They are historically inaccurate and illogical to boot.

Senator Webb has not lived there and is completely ignorant of what Burma is really like. Senator Webb should be ashamed of himself for sporting the illegal junta that is raping the people of Burma and their country.