Orazio used to say that “the spoken word cannot go back”. A maxim perhaps unfamiliar to Joe Biden, one so adept at slipups that he’s referred to himself as the “gaffe machine” in the past. This time, the President of the United States caught the eye of the storm because, speaking to Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, he said Putin is “a butcher” and “a dictator” who is “trying to rebuild an empire,” and for that reason “He cannot remain in power,” suggesting that there is a regimechange policy in Russia as a result. Detail not to be neglected: According to the White House, Biden spoke off the cuff: this phrase (“Putin cannot stay in power”) was not part of the speech he should have made in Poland on the last leg of his European tour. In other words, it would be the classic voice of the escaped Sen. Quarrels are inevitable. A chorus for the unanimous truth.
The reactions after the slip
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was one of the first to point out that the US had no strategy “for regime change in Russia or anywhere else.” Concept endorsed by EU High Representative Josep Borrell. “As the EU, we are not looking for regime change, it is up to Russian citizens to decide if they want it. What we want in the case of Russia is to prevent the continuation of aggression, and that is our goal: to stop Putin’s war against Ukraine.” Even at home, Biden’s inflammatory words in Warsaw did not go unnoticed. “In the end There was one horrible gaffe in the speech, I wish he’d stuck to the text,” said Jim Risch, Republican group leader on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
Concerns were shared by former diplomat Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who tweeted that Biden’s words “made a difficult situation more difficult and a dangerous situation more dangerous.” According to Haass, this is an “obvious finding. How to repair the damage is less obvious, but I suggest that his key advisers[the President, Note Russian government]. I mean, this time Biden blew them big. So much so that he was forced to take himself denial by replying with a resounding “no” to journalists who asked him if he intended to remove Putin from power.
According to Biden, what will change?
And now? If this phrase about “regime change” were just a blunder (as it seems), it could still have consequences for the negotiations and complicate the peace negotiations. At least that’s what Biden’s critics are arguing (with good reason), and that’s how the people of Moscow think. So much so that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov immediately stigmatized the episode, declaring that “with insults,” “negotiations are more difficult,” adding that “Biden doesn’t decide who governs Russia.”
According to Haass himself, one of the veterans of US diplomacy who has so far supported the US administration’s line, there is a risk that Putin himself is convinced that he will do anything, refusing “any compromise” to end the war. On the other hand, as White House officials report, Putin has long believed that the US and its allies are determined to overthrow him and is convinced that behind the mass protests in Russian cities in 2011 were the largest since he was in Washington.
Not only. According to other observers, the Kremlin chief now has a powerful propaganda weapon at his disposal to underpin the thesis of a West that wants to interfere in Moscow’s internal affairs in front of the Russian public (and not only). The aim is to remove the President of the Russian Federation. While Putin’s narrative already relies heavily on the encirclement syndrome, Biden’s words run the risk of being used as justification for an eventual escalation of the conflict. With his faux pas, Biden finally confirmed the thesis of those who also believe in the West that the real goal of the US is not so much to end hostilities as to get rid of an uncomfortable opponent by turning Ukraine into a second Afghanistan. Wearing the Russian President would be the only way to achieve “regime change” in Moscow.
As Haass pointed out, “regime change can be a hope, but it cannot form the basis of our strategy.” In short, Biden would have confused his legitimate desire (to have a more democratic and less problematic Russia for international stability) with a strategic goal. Which, however, is not punishable. On this point, it should be made clear that both the White House and its allies in NATO and the EU agree. But Biden must have escaped.