US Pentagon chief Robert Gates was wrong to accuse Burma’s military rulers of being deaf and dumb of not allowing US warships with aid to Burma’s delta region.

Burma’s feudal warlords are not—although these politically traumatized generals are paranoid, self–important and live under the illusion that once they relinquish power, the country will disintegrate.

Indeed, as some observers suggest, the regime’s refusal to allow US warships to assist the cyclone relief effort has little to do with Burma’s colonial past and apparent xenophobia.

What the generals truly fear is that if they allow US warships and foreign forces to come to the aid of cyclone survivors in the Irrawaddy delta, people will soon rise up and the regime would be overthrown. That fear prevented the Than Shwe regime from allowing the US to come in and help.

The generals may, in fact, believe the humanitarian nature of a US intervention, while distrusting their own people—believing that were foreign forces to land Burma, it would spell the end of the regime.

Imagine a scenario where US marines and other servicemen land in the Irrawaddy delta, to be greeted by desperate Burmese urging them to overthrow the hated regime in Naypyidaw. The relief mission could quickly turn into one of regime-change and support for an anti-Than Shwe uprising.

But the regime has nothing to fear—the US warships, led by the USS Essex, will be leaving in a matter of days, according to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who traveled to Southeast Asia recently. Last week, French warship Mistral with 1,000 ton of aid had left near Burmese water expressing “shock” as the Burma had not permitted the Mistral to unload its aid cargo directly for distribution in the Irrawaddy Delta — the worst-hit area.

The US naval presence includes three amphibious ships, led by the Essex, carrying 22 heavy-lift helicopters and a small fleet of landing craft. The American helicopters were banned from Burmese air space, although the regime allowed several C-130 relief flights to Rangoon airport from Thailand’s Utapao airport—illustrating the regime’s selective policy in accepting US aid.

The regime leaders also insisted that only civilian aid workers will be allowed in the affected area. Even this promise has not yet been fully honored.

Calling the regime's behavior “criminal neglect,” Gates said the US had made more than 15 overtures to the regime to allow the use of the Essex's helicopters to deliver aid, but all had been rejected. Thousands of villagers would die because of the regime’s obduracy, Gates said.

It is safer for an impassive Than Shwe to allow hundreds of thousands of villagers in the Irrawaddy delta region to die rather than permitting a US relief mission to save them—a deadly decision indeed.

Than Shwe knows full well that millions of Burmese wait in hope for the arrival of US warships, and not only for the relief supplies they would bring.

At the time of the 1988 democracy uprising, Burma’s military leaders lodged a complaint with the US embassy after sighting a US naval fleet of five warships, including the aircraft carrier Coral Sea, within Burmese territorial waters on the morning of 12 September, six days before the army staged a bloody coup.

The sighting caused “major concern” among Burmese leaders including Ne Win, who in the 1970s had secured US military assistance, including helicopters, in fighting communists and drug warlords.

In those years, Burma sent its officers to the US General Staff College for training and study. Burma’s official policy was, and remains: Americans are welcome, except in times of political crisis.

Applying this policy, the military leaders even refused permission for a US C-130 plane to land in Rangoon in 1988 in order to evacuate US embassy staff during the anti-government uprising.

There were rumors that US warships were on their way to help democratic forces in the uprising in 1988, prompting thousands of young Burmese to leave the jungle and take up arms shortly after the September 18 coup. But the rumors were just wishful thinking—the US warships never materialized.

Twenty years later, the Burmese are still waiting for those warships, which this time carry humanitarian aid. And, by a bitter irony, the ships remain as illusory as ever.

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, a joke shared among Burmese was ‘After diamonds, it will be the turn of gold’– referring to the Burmese words for diamonds (Sein) and gold (Shwe), meaning Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Burma’s junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

Now, a new rumor is spreading throughout Burma.

While looking skywards in vain for relief supply airlifts, people are saying that astrologers told Than Shwe that as soon as white men with uniform landed in Burma, the regime would immediately collapse.

US soldiers landing from amphibious ships and helicopters with relief supplies could be mistaken for “liberation forces” and would no doubt ignite a popular uprising beyond the Irrawaddy delta. Foreign forces would meet appeals for help from survivors and the refugees who are now being forcibly ejected from temporary shelters. Armed clashes could occur between Burmese government and foreign forces, and the Irrawaddy delta could become a battlefield.

But the battle wouldn’t be confined to the delta region. There would be a national uprising against the oppressive regime in Naypyidaw.

US soldiers would be asked to attack Than Shwe’s stronghold and remove the regime. Observers and dissidents say it would take no more than 30 minutes to topple Than Shwe and his coterie of no more than two dozen.

There’s popular agreement that members of Burma’s armed forces would join the endeavor.

But that’s all wishful thinking now. Than Shwe has again escaped justice, saving his own life by sacrificing the lives of his countrymen and women by refusing humanitarian aid from the warships.

Perhaps the US knew from the start that its ships would not be allowed into Burmese waters, conscious that its forces might end up dislodging the world’s most hated regime instead of delivering relief of another kind. And that mission could prove to be open-ended, resolving a political mess no less complicated than the task of clearing up after Cyclone Nargis.