Biden’s remarks about ousting Putin risk changing the world forever

Biden’s remarks about ousting Putin risk changing the world forever

By: Rachel Marsden

PARIS — When President Joe Biden took to a podium in Warsaw, Poland, to rally support for Ukraine in its western-backed conflict with Russia, he flat-out confirmed a long-held suspicion of Russian officials, which has traditionally been chalked up to their own paranoia or conspiratorial imagination. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Armed with his own whopping 40 percent approval rating, Biden later claimed that his remarks about Putin’s moral authority to govern were just an expression of “moral outrage” and not suggestive of policy change. Well, he’s right about one thing. Biden’s words certainly aren’t reflective of any change in policy. Rather, they’re indicative of longstanding strategy that’s basically an open secret at this point. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried desperately to re-frame Biden’s remarks. “I think the President, the White House made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else," Blinken said.

Nice try. No one considers Putin “in power” in Ukraine. And if we’re going to get down into the weeds regarding who exactly is being “empowered” to “wage war” in Ukraine, its disingenuous to omit the role played by the U.S. and its allies in flooding Ukraine with weapons, training, and funding for the sole purpose of fueling endless antagonism of Russia on its own border over the past couple of decades.

What’s transpiring in Ukraine now is yet another U.S.-backed proxy war against a country that it doesn’t like because it can’t control its leadership — just as we’ve witnessed in Syria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Bolivia, and so many others. The objective is to try to cause enough chaos for the target that it ultimately gets overthrown into a “friendly” country headed by a puppet who backs Washington’s agenda.

That has always been the observable pattern, but until now it has never emerged from the mouth of a president of the United States — the individual with the power to determine foreign policy. For reasons that I’ll ignore, Biden has shown a clear and consistent pattern of filter slippage — the inability to maintain the facade required to sell various aspects of regime-change agendas discussed in Washington back rooms as simply the spread of freedom and democracy.

With just nine words, Biden has undermined any suggestion that Washington wants peace in Ukraine. Sanctioning Russia to the hilt to choke off its ability to engage militarily in Ukraine while simultaneously cheering on (and supplying) Ukraine to fight Russia down to the last willing Ukrainian is presumably supposed to promote peace through an eventual stalemate. But now Biden has tipped Washington’s hand to the Russians, who will no doubt interpret his words as proof that there will be no peace with Russia from the U.S. until the much greater objective of regime change is met.

As a result of Biden’s unfiltered honesty about the ultimate objective with regards to Putin, Moscow will likely be motivated to view the current conflict in a much different light. Whereas Moscow may have previously been willing to compromise on matters related to total Ukrainian disarmament or the degree of Washington-backed Kyiv government’s control over “buffer regions” on the Russia-Ukraine border, Putin will now likely seek to unambiguously eliminate all potential avenues for regrouping of any potential future direct threat to himself.

Biden has also made the situation infinitely more difficult for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who will now face the task of having to prove to Moscow that his country isn’t an outright American outpost and is genuinely capable of neutrality, sovereignty, and independence vis-à-vis both Moscow and Washington. So far, Zelenskyy isn’t inspiring much confidence in that regard, giving the impression that he isn’t making any moves independently without first consulting Biden and other western leaders.

Worse, in a recent interview with CNN, Zelenskyy hinted that he previously permitted the exploitation of Ukraine for the advancement of western interests when he explained that he had previously requested clarity on the reality of Ukraine joining NATO. “The response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open," Zelenskyy said, suggesting that he indulged the West’s desire to simply use Ukraine to needlessly antagonize Moscow. In the context of Biden’s regime change comments, such blatant prostration turns Washington’s allies into enablers.

There is no walking back Biden’s words. Ever. Regime change, evoked by the president of the United States, is the incentive that every single unaligned world leader needed to rally the home team against what they will portray as an existential foreign threat and an attempt to undermine their sovereignty. In the same way that people don’t like outsiders criticizing the most problematic of family members, if there’s one thing that could unite all people within a country — regardless of political stripe — it’s that.