I agree.

Bush and some of the Reagan admin holdover (particularly in the CIA) only saw an opportunity to collapse a rival, whereas Gorbachev was attempting the extremely difficult task of reforming the Soviet Union into a group of Democratic Socialist republics with actual multi-party elections...

I'm pretty sure that version of Russia, had it come to be, would be a much better version than the current Dictatorial Kleptocracy run by Putin.

Of course, even with US help the whole thing likely would have still fallen apart. It just would have been much more of a "soft landing" (gentle/bloodless dissolution) rather than wars (Chechnya), uprisings (Baltic states), and a massive portion of the Russian population falling into poverty and alcoholism/drugs/organized crime.