Has Julie Bishop taken on an impossible task?

Historian Thant Myint-U writing for Foreign Affairs believes the only path to a peaceful Myanmar is "an entirely different conception of its national identity, free of the ethno-nationalist narratives of the past, and a transformed political economy. "The weight of history makes this the only acceptable outcome but also a Herculean task to achieve. The alternative, however, is not dictatorship, which can no longer achieve stability, but rather ever-deepening state failure and the prospect of a violent, anarchic Myanmar at the heart of Asia for decades to come." So what can international diplomats do? As the UN's representative, Bishop is…