Currently, Russia's political stability can jeopardize some high-stakes selfish interests. There is a wealth of oil in Russian territory, and a lot of people want to get a cut of the prospective returns on the energy reserves and their payoff with China's labor economy. Who's going to be the Rockefeller of Russia?

looks like the neo-cons are looking for fresh pastures and are using the arch-liberal Kasparov, because his name is bound to attract worldwide publicity.

"arch-liberal" is a strange & self contradictory concept. But I agree that Kasparov is being used & that, if he can only pull out a demonstration of 1,000 is hardly likely to sweep to power on a popular tide. I have commented previously on the fact that the media are spending a lot of time objecting to his brief detention but give no coverage to his opponent in the communist V capitalist chess match, Bobby Fischer, being imprisoned for 6 months for the purely political crime of visiting Yugoslavia.

Our media are more keen to oppose what they allege are human rights abuses in Russia, than genuine western ones.