As its political reforms stall, Burma is in danger of regressing. Is the democracy icon fighting back hard enough


It's one of the largest parliamentary complexes in the world, a legislature whose colossal size stands in inverse proportion to the actual work that occurs within its marbled halls. Each morning that it's in session, busloads of military brass, who are constitutionally guaranteed a quarter of the 664 seats, roll up to the complex, its 31 spired buildings representing each plane of Buddhist existence. Then come vehicles filled with civilian MP s, the men outfitted in the jaunty headgear—silk, feathers, the occasional animal pelt—that is mandatory for male MP s not in the military. Among the last to arrive is a private sedan carrying the country's most famous lawmaker, democracy heroine Aung San Suu Kyi, known in Burma …