He saw the soul but not the flames?
At the end of the day, one thing you can say about Clinton, Bush, and Obama, as they were all not nearly as smart as they think they are.
Everyone has a soul, if GW hadn’t been such a Pollyanna he would have seen that Putin (or anyone who worked for the KGB) is not a man with any humanity in him. He’s a leader, but in the old Tsarist fashion; he’s not interested in Russia so much as he is in his own personal glory and determined to rebuild the old empire at any cost, even if it means butchering Russians through military conscription. There is no way that he’s not going to pull a Napoleon and NOT try to build his empire and crown himself emperor.