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I am not so sure that Democracy in Russia was NOT in some way "imposed" from outside.

Yeah, you're right, democracy was invented not in Russia but in ancient Greece and in a sense imposed from there to everybody else.

We got to them, their people. Won that war without firing a single (big) shot. Thank to Ronald Reagan..

And here you are dead wrong. I am one of those to who you supposedly "got". We always had very clear idea what the communism was about. Furthermore, 1985-1990 were the years of very intense internal social and democratic development. Then twice, in 1991 and 1993, the country was on the brink of civil war. These crises taught us caution and that to avoid bloodshed different views in the society must be balanced, and the only mechanism to do it efficiently is democracy.

That's exactly what Putin means when he says that democracy cannot be imposed from outside. The idea of what is democracy is known to people everywhere. However, it works efficiently only when other circumstances are right. That's exactly what is missing in Iraq and will be missing in Iraq. When people go and vote for the leaders they were told to vote is not a democracy. Democracy is when people make individual choice to select a person who will best represent their interests. To be able to do this, the society should be developed enough for people to realize their self interests and understand the need for such system, and this need should grow inside that society. In Iraq, Shiites voted for Shiites, Kurds for Kurds and Sunnis for Sunnis. This is not a democracy, even if you like to call it this way. They will have democracy when conservative kurds will vote for conservative shiites because they best represent the conservative interests and ideals. Now it is tribal system with free elections of the tribal chiefs. Democracy is far from being equal to only free elections.

About Germany and Japan. I happen to be quite interested in the postwar history of Japan. What they have in Japan is not Western democracy, not even now. They have the same party in power for all 60 years, and real power struggle is not during elections but after them, between different factions within the same party. They just keep it quiet and everybody is happy.

About Reagan. I have been always amused by the views of supposedly great role of Reagan in the fall of Communism hold by people here. If any Western leader had any significant influence in Russia then, this leader was Margaret Thatcher, not Reagan. Reagan was absolutely neither liked nor respected in Russia until his death.