The Pentagon confirms that the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, will not resign over the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan.
Good. Why should he?
Joe Biden is the president of the United States, and he, not Secretary Austin, made this call. Indeed, by all accounts, Biden repeatedly ignored the advice of his staff on this question, and went it alone. And that’s fine — indeed, given that the military is subordinate to the civil authority, it’s constitutionally mandatory in such cases as the president believes that the military is wrong — but it also means that this is Joe Biden’s fault.
By the terms of our constitutional order, the various departments inside the executive branch are under the authority of President Biden, and they exist to carry out his orders (consistent with statute). Unless Congress has set the terms or made its will known in detail — which, in this case, it did not — those orders are the responsibility of the president. After they have been given, there really are only two options available to staff: (a) to carry them out, or, (b) if they believe them to be illegal or immoral, to resign.
Who deserves ultimate blame for President Biden’s mistake? The answer, surely, should be obvious.