WATCH: Confused Biden Says Putin Is ‘Losing The War In Iraq’

Another day, another Biden gaffe. President Biden’s latest incident was misplacing Ukraine for Iraq when discussing prospects of the Russo-Ukrainian War. “It is hard to tell but he [Russian president Vladimir Putin] is clearly losing the war in Iraq. He is losing the war at home and he has become a bit of a blight around the world. It is not just NATO and its not just [the former ?] Soviet Union- it is Japan and – you know- forty nations” remarked the president. It was the United States that went into Iraq in 2003. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The president confused the two events.

The sentiment that Russia is losing the war in Ukraine is not universally shared. Some political science scholars such as professor John Mearsheimer think that Russia will ultimately win “an ugly victory” where it ends up annexing huge swathes of Ukraine and turn Ukraine into a weak rump state. Mearsheimer bases his analysis on the fact that it is a war of attrition where Russia had greater manpower and ammunition reserves than Ukraine has even with Western assistance.

Mearsheimer observes that Russia believes it faces an existential threat from the West through Ukraine and has the resolve to carry on the hard fight. There is also evidence to suggest that Russia has a better part of the casualty-exchange ratio than Ukraine does due to its decisive advantage in artillery.

As for Biden’s remarks that Putin is losing the war at home, this too can be contested. Putin’s popularity in the month of May 2023 sat at 82 percent in Russia according to Statista Research Department. This in part explains why institutional forces within Russia quickly rallied around Putin during the brief and relatively bloodless Prigozhin mutiny. Some political analysts think that Putin could emerge from the affair in an even stronger position. If there is one lesson from all this it is that nothing is certain.

Still, Biden’s gaffe did make for a lot of humorous remarks on Twitter. One Twitter user, Emergent Perspective, made a Twilight meme making light of the gaffe.

#RussiaUkraineWar
*Twilight Zone Theme* pic.twitter.com/q2kvfBJa5b

— Emergent Perspective (@_emergent_) June 28, 2023

Another Twitter user, rightwingsavages, also posted a funny meme depicting a sign saying “This Administration Has Worked 0 Days Without A Scandal.”

https://twitter.com/rtwngsavages/status/1674064641071218690

Yet another user made light of the gaffe by tweeting “Mission accomplished?” which itself is a homage to President George Bush’s  2003 Iraq victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner bearing that phrase.

Mission accomplished?

— Barry Wernick (@Wernick4Dallas) June 28, 2023

President Bush’s speech itself became a sign of premature and dubious declaration of victory as the war in Iraq continued for years after that speech. Depending on the fortunes of the Russo-Ukraine war, Biden’s statement here will be treated with similar criticism.