Okay, Is He For or Against?

I don’t honestly know whether Josh Rogin supports Lloyd Austin’s nomination to be Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense or opposes it in his latest Washington Post column:

A 2015 video circulating widely in Washington shows Austin, then in charge of Central Command, being scolded by then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) for failing to support measures to protect Syrian civilians or to develop a viable strategy for protecting U.S. interests there.

“I have never seen a hearing that is as divorced from the reality of every outside expert and what you are saying,” McCain told Austin. Also in that testimony, Austin admitted Centcom’s $500 million train-and-equip program for Syrian rebels had produced only “four or five” trained fighters who survived the first battle. For Syria-watchers, the Obama administration’s policy as partially implemented by Austin was, as McCain said, an abject failure. But that is not Austin’s fault; he was obeying orders and following the Obama White House’s lead. As many have recently noted, Austin is known for being a competent manager and a loyal soldier, never putting his own views or interests ahead of his orders. Some say these characteristics are weaknesses for a defense secretary, who ought to be a strategic visionary and a policy wonk. But Austin may prove to be those things as well. If confirmed, he will for the first time have the chance to make policy, not just implement it.

I guess he supports him but it’s not entirely clear. I also think he does not understand what the SecDef does.

Yes, the Obama Administration’s policy was a flop. It was a flop because he relied on false premises among them that they were supporting liberals against the Assad regime, that doing so protected civilians, that replacing Assad would solve anything, and that there was a better alternative than Assad’s regime. Does Mr. Rogin have those misconceptions as well? There might have been some liberals opposing Assad but that ended quickly and what were left were Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. When we were training and supplying the anti-Assad rebels we were perversely supporting Al Qaeda. And, in fact, the Islamic State as well—the two are pretty fluid, both radical Sunni Islamists.

And the Islamic State persecuted civilians, too. The only recourse we had for protecting civilians was to support the Assad regime, deeply distasteful and politically impossible. There was also the assumption that in a truly free and fair election in Syria Assad would not have prevailed.

Here’s my question about Joe Biden’s nomination of Lloyd Austin: what does it actually signal? Other than diversity I mean.