Myanmar should open up

Hardly days after former U.S. President Bill Clinton completed a whirlwind 20-hour trip to North Korea, bringing home two imprisoned American journalists, a prominent American senator has arrived in Myanmar for high-level talks with officials in the isolated Southeast Asian nation.

The visit by Senator James Webb, elected from the state of Virginia and a prominent member of Obama's ruling Democratic Party, has been criticized for purportedly rewarding Myanmar's military dictators for their repressive actions.

Senator Webb, known to be a close friend of Obama, arrived in the country formerly known as Burma just days after a Myanmar court sentenced the country's main opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to an additional year and a half of house arrest, effectively barring her from taking part in national elections scheduled to be held next year.

The trial of Suu Kyi was held after U.S. citizen John Yettaw swam through a lake to reach Suu Kyi's home last May and apparently spent the night in the residence despite the presence of numerous Burmese guards and being told by Suu Kyi herself that he should leave the property.

Yettaw, who appears to suffer from some kind of mental condition, had managed to slip into Suu Kyi's compound for a second time after being apprehended there several months before and expelled from Myanmar.

Yettaw has since been sentenced to seven years of hard labor in a Burmese prison, causing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to demand his release.

While the visit by Senator Webb is surely controversial, Obama's policy of opening back-door channels of communication to rogue states is still a wise move.

By dispatching an elected senator instead of a high-ranking administration official, Obama is avoiding the appearance of rewarding the Myanmar regime for its continued unlawful arrest and detention of the country's most prominent leaders seeking democratic reforms.

Since Senator Webb has long been a critic of U.S.-led economic sanctions against Myanmar, his visit to the country poses little risk for Obama's administration if it fails to produce any significant results.

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