Biden's Putin remark turns up the heat

Apparent regime change call hosed down in US, but concerns heightened

Whether it was his intention or not, US President Joe Biden's remark in Poland about the status of Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned up the political temperature between the two countries over the military conflict in Ukraine.

In a speech on Saturday at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Biden said of Putin: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."

A White House official moved to clarify the remark, saying: "The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia or regime change."

On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told journalists in Jerusalem after a meeting with Israel's foreign minister: "We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else, for that matter. In this case, as in any case, it's up to the people of the country in question. It's up to the Russian people."

The remark about Putin, which reportedly was not part of the speech text, was seen as a distraction from the goal of ending the conflict.

"What it tells me, and worries me, is that the top team is not thinking about plausible war termination," Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution told The Washington Post. "The only way to get to war termination is to negotiate with this guy.

"When you say this guy must go, you've essentially declared you're not going to do business with him. However appealing at an emotional level, it's not going to happen. We can't control it, and it probably won't take place anytime soon."

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Post: "There ought to be two priorities right now: ending the war on terms Ukraine can accept, and discouraging any escalation by Putin. And this comment was inconsistent with both of those goals."

James Freeman, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, was blunter in his assessment. "Some issues are just too important to be left to an unscripted Joe Biden," wrote Freeman, adding that "these are dangerous times and we would all be much safer if Mr Biden would make greater use of prepared statements on subjects such as, for example, weapons of mass destruction", referring to a recent comment by Biden on US policy on the use of nuclear weapons.

Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, told the CNN network that the US "does not have a policy of regime change in Russia. Full stop."

Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he wished the Democratic president "would stay on script".

'Horrendous gaffe'

Risch told CNN that raising the notion of regime change would "cause a huge problem", calling the remark a "horrendous gaffe" and that "there's not a whole lot more you can do to escalate than to call for a regime change".

On Friday, the White House had to reiterate that US troops will not be going to Ukraine after the president alluded to such a scenario when addressing members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in Poland.

An NBC News poll released on Sunday but conducted before Biden's trip to Poland gave him the lowest approval rating of his presidency－40 percent.

The survey of 1,000 people conducted by one Republican and one Democratic pollster found that 71 percent had "just some" or "very little" confidence in Biden's ability to respond to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, including 43 percent of Democrats.

Eighty-two percent said they worried that the Eastern European clash could result in the use of nuclear weapons; 74 percent fear US troops will end up fighting in Ukraine, and 83 percent worry that it will exacerbate high inflation.

On domestic issues, the disapproval rate was 63 percent. The president, as is typical in such surveys, took a good portion of the blame. On inflation, 38 percent blamed Biden.

Agencies contributed to this story.