Irish Examiner View: Biden sends Putin a clear message

Speaking to an audience far greater than lawmakers and Americans watching on television, the US president confidently adopted the role as leader of the free world

 American President Joe Biden has highlighted the fact that democracies the world over had united to face down Russia’s unprecedented aggression and were unanimously choosing the side of peace and security over authoritarian thugs.

Despite most of his ambitious domestic agenda being stalled, president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address to both houses of Congress on Tuesday night still managed a stirring rallying cry to the free world and created a moment of rare unity in modern-day American politics.

His declaration that throughout history we’ve learned the lesson that when dictators are not made pay for their aggression, they simply cause more chaos, unified Washington’s most bitterly opposed factions behind him — and against his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Biden rightly highlighted the fact that democracies the world over had united to face down Russia’s unprecedented aggression and were unanimously choosing the side of peace and security over authoritarian thugs.

Framing the Ukrainian struggle as an epochal struggle for the freedoms threatened by dictators, he nevertheless admitted this battle was one which will take time to win. Speaking to an audience far greater than lawmakers and Americans watching on television, he confidently adopted the role as leader of the free world.

Although it was unlikely that Putin was watching Biden’s address, the message to the Kremlin was clear and unambiguous: There is a relentless determination across the world to stop Putin.

And while the US leader did not point to any path out of the conflict and it is unlikely that his speech will ease his domestic political difficulties, it may well be that it will be remembered as the point in history this century that revived Western alliances in the face of the actions of a tyrant.