“The ultimate goal of the War Party is ‘regime change’ in the Kremlin: they long to put another one of their stooges, along the lines of Boris Yeltsin, in the drivers’ seat. The problem with Yeltsin was that he couldn’t stay sober long enough to do Washington’s bidding. And now there is no plausible rival to the wildly popular Vladimir Putin, who has put the country back into some semblance of order. Their solution: declare Putin to be the reincarnation of Stalin and announce the death of ‘democracy’ in the former Soviet Union. This would pave the way for a resurgence of aid to ‘democratic’ organizations inside Russia, funneled covertly as well as overtly, and a slowly escalating series of trade sanctions designed to cripple the Russians economically, or at least make them feel the sting of Western wrath.” (11/19/07)