The unsplendid isolation of Myanmar is set to end after decades with Barack Obama&’s decision to lift economic sanctions and restore trade benefits. This must be reckoned as the signal achievement during Aung San Suu Kyi&’s current visit to the United States. Logically enough, Myanmar will cease to be a “pariah state”, the derogatory label that the West had conferred. In the twilight of his Presidency, Mr Obama has announced a watershed initiative, one that follows the agreement with Russia on Syria. In a sense, it is the logical culmination of his consistent pitch for negotiations with the junta during the years of Suu Kyi&’s incarceration. Equally is the US response a profound achievement of Myanmar&’s tryst with democracy — a “remarkable transformation” to summon the expression of President Obama in course of Thursday&’s meeting at the Oval office. Indeed, Suu Kyi&’s visit has been generally greeted in the US as a “crowning occasion” in the Obama administration&’s support for Myanmar&’s transition to democracy, which Washington views as a major foreign policy achievement. The nature of the country&’s dispensation had hitherto influenced economic dealings. The US had relaxed certain sanctions after political reforms were initiated five years ago, but has retained restrictions on military-owned companies and several officials and associates of the former ruling junta. US companies and banks have been ever so wary of involvement in one of Asia&’s untapped markets. With a democratic regime in Naypidaw, both countries have realised that it is time to move on. “It is the right thing to do,” was Mr Obama&’s succinct summing up of the shift in US foreign policy. Suu Kyi was remarkably prompt with her reciprocal statement, asserting that it was time to remove all the sanctions that had hurt the country economically. Myanmar, she told the US President, was now in a position to open up to investment, appealing to Americans to come over and “to make profits.” Economic ties are set to be redefined less than a year after last November&’s historic elections. And Mr Obama has set the course towards a profound change two months before America goes to the polls, though measures against the drug trade and military dealings with North Korea would still apply, as would a visa ban barring some former and current members of the military from travelling to the US. Markedly, the icon of democracy has requested the US to lift the “national emergency” with respect to Myanmar, indeed the executive order authorising sanctions that has been renewed annually by US Presidents for the past two decades. Nonetheless, a significant beginning has been made, verily the first major achievement of Myanmar&’s democratic engagement. Suu Kyi has scored where the junta had failed.