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I'd love to believe that, I just have a hard time holding out such hope when KGB agents takeover the elections process and muzzles the media. In particular one who does not hesitate to fatten his coffers illegally selling weapons being used to kill American and Brits.

Despite that, I do agree with much of your take on the situation. What worries me there is how Putin has so closely aligned himself with two other power hungry people, Chirac and Shroeder.

All three of them have visions of power and empire that I do not trust.

Putin is not going to eliminate democracy entirely, but he is going to stack the deck. There is still a free press, in particular - Russian newspapers are all over the map in terms of quality, but at least it's not like it was in the days of Pravda.

I don't think Putin was being so much a friend to France and Germany, as he was trying to sell the idea that Russia is Arabist in its approach to the Middle East. He was securing customers and diplomatic points by doing so.

But then again, if there is a strong reaction against Islam in Russia, he will turn on a dime to accomodate it. He's definitely no fool.

Regards, Ivan

"All three of them have visions of power and empire that I do not trust."

...a further word about that. We Americans are averted to "empire" and are particularly sensitive to renewed efforts to involve us in it or say that we are already willingly involved in it. We defend and even occupy to defend ourselves, if necessary. But most Americans want our troops out of foreign countries as soon as we can get them out, unless those countries become very friendly allies and want our continued assistance. We don't want our government to govern other countries unless temporarily necessary to our survival and theirs (e.g., Iraq).

Our most common mindset on empire is much the way it was with the Monroe Doctrine (early 1800s US decision to prevent any country, including our own, from ruling any areas of Central or South America to force wealth from them). We are averted to employing poeples of countries outside of our own for the purpose of forcing them to produce for us. That was even one point of contention in our Civil War, as the South wanted to claim and develop plantations with slaves south of our border.