Now she’s waking up not only with fleas, but in jail … presumably tamed for the rest of her life.

Trump’s coup blueprint goes global

Frankly, the military is only doing over in Myanmar what former President Trump tried to get the military to do here in the United States. Myanmar’s generals even parroted Trump’s canard about election fraud.

Of course, when his generals refused to obey his unconstitutional order to stage a coup, Trump took to a MAGA-rally stage and incited his supporters to stage an insurrection. And the rest is this kind of history now playing out in Myanmar.

In other words, Trump set a precedent for sore losers of democratic elections to follow in perpetuity. Even worse, he so undermined America’s moral authority that Myanmar’s generals could fairly argue their coup is no worse than what America’s commander in chief just tried to do.

The irony cuts deep. Now allies fear and enemies hope that America could relapse in four years. They might elect a wannabe Trump as president, if not reelecting Trump himself.

To appreciate how the world now sees America, however, Americans would do well to reflect on the two primary reasons Trump is now the only twice-impeached president in US history:

To appreciate how the world now sees America, Americans should reflect on why Trump became the only twice-impeached president in US history:

He was caught on tape sounding like a tin-pot dictator, trying in vain to extort Ukraine’s president for dirt on Joe Biden.
He incited a MAGA mob to storm the US Capitol in a vain attempt to prevent Congress from formally counting Electoral College votes that certified Biden as the duly elected 46th president.

Myanmar’s military generals aped Trump even in this latter respect. They waited until Parliament was convening to ratify Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory to strike.

Western protests ring hollow

Meanwhile, Western governments are registering protests. They’re giving the impression that Biden’s inauguration awakened the whole world from a Trump presidency nightmare. But Myanmar’s military generals are hardly quaking in their boots. They have a history of withstanding such protests that must impress even North Korea and Cuba’s leaders.

Apropos of which, I wish President Biden had the presence of mind to condemn their actions without threatening dire consequences. Everyone knows his sanctions will have no greater influence on these generals than the sanctions 11 consecutive US presidents imposed on Comandante Fidel Castro after his 1959 coup.

Mind you, Myanmar’s military generals could also scoff at American hypocrisy. After all, America blessed a military coup in Pakistan in 1999, but curses this very similar coup in Myanmar today. I even began mocking Pakistan’s coup leader in commentaries, such as “Day of Reckoning for America’s Most-Favored Dictator – General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan,” August 24, 2007.

Of course, China and Russia are typically mum, knowing full well that silence means approval in this context. But, no matter their flirtations with Suu Kyi’s democratic government, she had no reason to harbor illusions about either country defending her against a military coup.

After all, China and Russia have shown time and again they have far greater affinity for military dictatorships than democratic governments.

And it hardly matters that those democratic governments behave, at times, like military dictatorships.

Suu Kyi’s inevitable downfall

This coup became inevitable after Suu Kyi showed the military generals she could be used. She has simply outlived her usefulness.

As it happens, I was among the first to warn that it would be thus. But nothing animated my disillusionment quite like watching former President Barack Obama’s pilgrimage to meet Suu Kyi.

His advisers spun it as a meeting of two Nobel Peace laureates. But this ignored that Obama already admitted he had done nothing to deserve his prize. Meanwhile, Suu Kyi was already compromising her democratic principles in ways that made a mockery of hers.

Simply put, he was never the peacemaker and she was never the democracy icon they were hyped to be, respectively.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised two years ago when Ben Rhodes, Obama’s most high-profile adviser, finally ate his words.

I covered this awakening comprehensively in my August 2019 commentary on Rhodes’ Atlantic article. Rhodes went from hailing Suu Kyi as Myanmar’s best hope to move “onto the path of democracy” to asking “What went wrong?” after she became complicit in ethnic cleansing.

But to Rhodes I say: ask not what went wrong with Suu Kyi, ask what was wrong with you that you could not see.

I Saw the Warning Signs From the Start

Even I could see the warning signs. Just a few of my commentary headlines from 2012-2018 tell the story:

“Myanmar: One Small Step for Democracy, One Giant Leap for Aung San Suu Kyi” (April 2, 2012)
“Aung San Suu Kyi Becoming Democratic Mascot of Myanmar’s Military Dictatorship” (March 28, 2013)
“Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi Courting Totalitarian Power at the Expense of Democratic Principles” (September 14, 2015)
“Suu Kyi, ‘Myanmar’s Mandela’, Is a Religious Bigot Who Condones Ethnic Cleansing?” (March 30, 2016)

I warned consistently about her transformation from democracy icon to genocide enabler.

In my 2012 analysis of Obama’s Myanmar trip, I noted how international human rights groups criticized him for conferring legitimacy on an oppressive regime.

The regime was perpetrating ethnic cleansing of minorities, most notably the Rohingya Muslims.

I observed that President Thein Sein had co-opted this former ‘democracy icon’ into his political establishment. She became leader of the loyal opposition in parliament. But her deafening silence, while majority Buddhists continued ethnic cleansing of minority Muslims, demonstrated this co-option completely.

The Buddhist Suu Kyi would demur when challenged, claiming she wasn’t taking sides to preserve her impartiality. But imagine how much worse religious cleansing in India would have been if the Hindu Gandhi had not been vocal in condemning it.

I warned that her liberation would do little to facilitate democratic reform in Myanmar. Despite her celebrated participation, the parliamentary elections were no more a harbinger of democratic change than quinquennial elections in Cuba.

Everyone hoped the Myanmar trip would put a feather in Obama’s cap. But the cringeworthy way she flinched from his embrace when they first met prefigured the stain this trip would put on his legacy. It ranks with his failure to close Guantanamo, his failure to end unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his failure to oversee Libya’s democratic transition after assassinating Muammar Gaddafi.

The final verdict

Nobody was more enthusiastic when Obama deserved praise. But nobody was harsher when he deserved criticism.

As for Suu Kyi, she doesn’t have a prayer of becoming a cause celebre in the West again. Hell, she’ll be lucky if anyone remembers she’s in jail, where I fear the generals will see her rot.

Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.

FOLLOW ME ON: Facebook / Instagram / Threads