Both comments caught councilors unprepared, appearing nowhere in his script comments and going beyond the government’s official position. His remarks about the genocide took place at an ethanol processing plant in Iowa, standing on top of a straw-covered stage.
“We will leave the lawyers to decide internationally whether he meets the requirements or not,” he said on the runway at Des Moines International Airport as he prepared to board Air Force One, “but I definitely think so.”
As Biden confronts the war, which officials believe could last for months, he is guided by both the burden of the presidency and its borders. His words have been carefully analyzed for official significance, even when advertised, which raises concerns about the escalation of the crisis. At the same time, his impulse to visit Ukraine and witness the situation first hand has been thwarted by the bubble that accompanies him everywhere. And internal concerns are pulling him in other directions, his powers extending far beyond foreign war – leading to sometimes conflicting scenarios such as declaring genocide at a biofuel plant, pieces of corn dust floating on top.
Dynamics sometimes create tension for a president whose response to the conflict has sometimes been deeply emotional and whose decades of experience in international relations – at the lower levels of senator and vice president – provides information about his thinking.
His comment on the genocide has raised fears among some officials that it is ahead of the administration’s legal process and could be seen as putting pressure on officials currently working to make a formal decision, according to people familiar with the response. Just a week before speaking, Biden’s senior national security official said the conditions for calling it genocide had not been met, and the State Department had not yet said whether it had found evidence of a change in that position.
As he watched scenes of atrocities that emerged last week, Biden privately suggested that they could be evidence of genocide, according to a person familiar with the matter. But this was not officially announced by his administration when he called it genocide publicly.
This was the latest example of testing Biden’s longstanding political traits for outspokenness and empathy in his new, elevated role. His allies and advisers say these characteristics act as a clarifying force for a largely united Western union. And Biden said in private that he did not have much time to waste to call Putin’s actions as they obviously are.
But some question his impulses and wonder if a more disciplined approach can work better.
After saying in Iowa that it was becoming “clearer and clearer” that the genocide was under way in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed concern that escalating language could hamper attempts to negotiate a solution to the violence.
“I want to keep trying, as much as I can, to stop this war and restore peace. I’m not sure the escalation of rhetoric serves this cause,” Macron said. He also warned against escalation following Biden’s comment in Warsaw that Putin should no longer be in power.
Other world leaders have welcomed Biden’s candor. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he believed it was “absolutely right that more and more people” use the word “genocide” to describe Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. However, the Canadian leader stopped accusing the Kremlin of genocide.
Biden appears before the rest of his administration
US presidents are usually wary of labeling “genocide” before a lengthy trial at the State Department is over. The name has been officially applied only eight times. And after Biden’s remark, officials said they were not yet making an official statement based on what he said.
“There are certain legal obligations that come with the formal definition of genocide,” Victoria Nuland, deputy secretary of state for political affairs, told CNN the day after Biden’s speech.
However, the White House is careful not to belittle words like the thoughts of a private citizen.
“He is president and we are here to apply his views,” said spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “I don’t think we should be misunderstanding who he is and where he stands on the totem pole at the top.”
After all, Biden’s comment on the genocide is not expected to provoke immediate changes in US policy toward Ukraine, which has led some to wonder what the benefits are.
“For me, the biggest question is what purpose does it serve? We can have a philosophical, legal debate about whether what the Russians have done so far is technical genocide. They have apparently committed any number of acts that fall into the category of war crime. But then the question is why is it talked about this way? Does that make it easier to end the war? “Said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
“I will be honest with you, I do not see the benefit of this and do not misunderstand me, this is not what the Russians are doing,” Haas continued. “Not that these aren’t horrible things. My question now is how does it serve the strategic and political goals of the United States? And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t see how it works.”
Ultimately, Biden’s remark is rooted in the same place where his determination Putin cannot stay in power: the destructive emotion of the conflict, played out in hard-to-watch images of atrocities and suffering. Biden himself complains that as president, his ability to witness the suffering in Ukraine is limited by the difficult but necessary attributes of the job.
“We are not sending the president to Ukraine”
When planning a visit to Poland last month, Biden’s team explored the possibility of crossing the border to visit Ukraine, which will send an important signal of support. President Vladimir Zelensky encouraged Biden to visit Kyiv again and again in a telephone conversation before the Russian invasion and continued to publicly encourage Western leaders to make the trip.
White House officials, discussing Biden’s prospect of escaping to Ukraine, assessed both the footprint of the United States, which would require such a visit – including military and secret service assets, along with a retinue of aides and the press – and what Ukraine’s resources would be. .
In the end, however, the scale of a visit by the American president was too large and the aides did not seriously consider it. Instead, Biden went to a town in southeastern Poland near the border. When he was there, he complained about his inability to cover the additional 50 miles in Ukraine.
“They will not let me, understandably, I guess, cross the border and see what is happening in Ukraine,” he said.
As a senator and vice president, Biden was a regular visitor to US military zones, including on secret trips on a dark night, a fact he mentioned when meeting with troops at a stadium in Poland.
“I’ve been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan about 40 times,” he recalls.
But unlike a stop in Iraq or Afghanistan, where US bases and personnel could help secure airspace, Ukraine is not a US military zone and Biden flatly refuses to send US troops to the country.
As Russian troops withdrew from the area around Ukraine, a stream of Western leaders did manage to enter the country. The first was European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who stopped to see atrocities in the city of Bucha before continuing on to Kyiv.
She was followed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who walked the streets of the capital with Zelensky, shaking hands and meeting residents who had come out of weeks of bombing. A woman gave him a ceramic chicken figurine as a token of gratitude. He ate a bowl of soup with Zelenski.
Watching from Washington, Biden couldn’t help but long to leave alone. After taking office, he has long argued that a face-to-face meeting with leaders is much preferable to a telephone conversation, and the last-minute NATO summit in Brussels was his idea. As a politician, his strength has always been in human interactions with ordinary people.
Yet even the logistics of the British leader’s visit – which included planes, trains and helicopters – would prove impossible for an American leader.
Since returning from Europe, Biden has used public appearances to focus exclusively on domestic issues, increasing his travels around the country to promote economic progress as his ratings of approval continue to decline. Assistants say kitchen problems are a priority, and his schedule reflects that.
Biden said this week that he was still deciding whether to send a senior US official to Ukraine. When he jokingly asked a reporter if they were ready to leave, they replied, “Is that you?”
“Yes,” Biden said.
“He’s ready, he’s ready for anything. The man likes fast cars, few aviators, he’s ready to go to Ukraine,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an interview with Pod Save America on Thursday.
Still, she was clear that there was no prospect of such a trip materializing: “We are not sending the president to Ukraine,” she said.
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