Joe Biden’s most attractive characteristic is his authenticity. Throughout his political career he has had the capacity and emotional intelligence at crucial moments to say what he thinks. To say what is right. Unvarnished. Uncontaminated by unnecessary complexity, ideology or perceived super smart public relations or diplomatic doublespeak. He has not always got it right and can on occasion suffer foot in mouth but he is more often right than wrong.
He does not have the linguistic sheen and polish of Barak Obama. His rhetoric rarely thrills and there is always the risk he will disassemble or malaprop when a stirring crescendo is the objective. It was that which resulted in Hilary Clinton not his vice-president getting Obama’s thumbs up to be the Democratic candidate to run against Donald Trump in 2016. There was also Biden’s reluctance to run so soon after the tragic death from cancer of his son Beau Biden. Had Biden run we might have been spared the Trump presidency.
In a major speech in Poland last weekend, addressing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the barbarism and brutality of Russian forces and Vladimir Putin’s responsibility for the destruction of Ukrainian cities, towns and hamlets, Biden went off script to declare: “For God sake, this man cannot remain in power”. This was simply a righteous exclamation of moral indignation derived from the utter immorality and international legal bankruptcy of Putin’s deceptive leadership of the Russian people and the calamity he has wrongly inflicted on a neighbouring country and its population. Realpolitik may require that Biden has future engagement with Putin but it does not require he hide his disgust for the atrocities and war crimes committed and the population disruption caused by Putin’s war.
Biden’s righteous indignation was the stirring unplanned crescendo his important Polish speech required. It focused on the fact that this is Putin’s war and that a man now correctly labelled a war criminal, whose crimes should one day lead to his arrest and prosecution before the International Criminal Court, should be seen as a pariah by his own people. It thrilled and was rightly applauded by his Polish audience.
Finn McRedmond: Wholesale boycott of Russia a dangerous departure from Western values
The Irish Times view on Ukrainian refugees: looking beyond a short-term fix
Curran Affairs – Frank McNally on the extraordinary friends (and relatives) of CP Curran
Is there no Sinn Féin trap into which DUP will not tumble?
Instead of standing by Biden’s unscripted derision of Putin, focusing on the international illegitimacy of Putin’s action and Biden’s strong support for Ukraine, Poland and western democracies, those around Biden, fearful of Putin’s reaction and of the Democratic Party’s self-appointed “progressives”, rushed out to brief that America is not in the business of regime change.
French president Emmanuel Macron, who has to date failed in his many much publicised pre-election engagements with Putin to either prevent him attacking Ukraine or persuade him to end the war, wrongly publicly upbraided Biden warning of not escalating “in words or actions” if a ceasefire is to be achieved.
Macron’s chiding of Biden’s “escalation” when viewed through the lens of Putin’s total destruction of Mariupol and reported murder by Russian forces of 5,000 of its civilian residents brings no added value to Macron’s political stature nor to his credibility as an intermediary. If one thing should have been learned by now by all international leaders and those around them it is western and Ukrainian strength, action and plain speaking not weakness and fear of causing Putin offence that will end this war. While factually-based condemnatory rhetoric is no defence to missiles and bullets, it is of significant value in counteracting Putin’s multiple false narratives justifying his self-styled Ukrainian “special operation”. It lifts morale and supports the Ukrainian defence against Russian aggression and helps inform those within Russia who can bypass Russia’s blanket censorship.
Biden did not claim nor say that the US can or will remove Putin from power. The US cannot nor will attempt to do so. However, there can be few, if any, in the West who would not like to see political change in Russia and an end to this unnecessary war and there should be no reservation in saying so. There should also be no reservation in addressing the Russian public to better inform them of the atrocities being perpetrated in the name of mother Russia.
During the cold war US presidents frequently called for a better world free of communist oppression. In 1963, in his famous speech in Berlin president John F Kennedy spoke of looking forward “to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe”. Confronted by a kleptocratic militarist Russian president with imperialist ambitions to recreate the Russian empire and walk in the footsteps of Catherine and Alexander the Great and Tsar Nicholas the First while arresting all his domestic critics, Biden is right to make a call that mirrors that of his predecessors.
Those around Biden and western leaders who feel queasy need to remember that it is Putin who unashamedly and very publicly launched his war to effect regime change in Kyiv, to disarm Ukraine and install his own puppet government. He also made no secret of his ambition to “denazify” and eliminate Ukraine’s government led by it’s Jewish president.
There should be no fear that public credibility will attach to future claims by Putin that he is fighting a war against Ukrainian and western aggression intended to destabilise Russia and remove him from power. No one in the West should forget or regard it as some sort of secret that Putin is the aggressor and started the conflict. That includes a French president understandably intent on re-election.
Alan Shatter is a former minister for justice, equality and defence, and a former member of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council and EU Council of Defence Ministers