[thyrsus]

I agree completely that assasination, beyond moral abhorrence, would work out as well as most U.S. foreign policy - horrifically. The last foreign policy success I'm aware of was the Marshall plan.

I think it's a mistake to minimize Russian influence, when it suffices to compare the unmitigated disaster of U.S. actions - both government and private sector, and at enormous scale - in post-Soviet Russia.