Today, of course, every German you meet will tell you at tedious length how anti-Nazi he is. The Soviet Union came to an end not through war, but through internal collapse. This, of course, is a familiar refrain. The only way out for Russia is to let the West come in and run the show for a few years. And this is really the issue.
Democracy is neither here nor there.
You do as the United States tells you, otherwise you are not really a democrat. William Safire foams at the mouth when he writes about Russia. Yet, not once does he express concern about repression in Israel s buddy, Turkey, say. Russian repression in Chechnya has certainly been pretty brutal. But since the world, including the United States, does not recognize Chechnya as an independent state, the Russians are within their rights to defeat the secessionists.