Before Lloyd Austin was President-elect Joe Biden s pick for secretary of defense, he spent three years under President Barack Obama running Americas military operations in the Middle East. As the head of U.S. Central Command, the busiest of the Pentagons 11 sprawling combatant commands, Austin oversaw U.S. support for Saudi Arabia and its partners as they waged a brutal military campaign in Yemen, fueling the worlds worst humanitarian crisis.

Since then, Biden has called for an end to American involvement in Yemen, multiple officials who crafted it have said they regret their choices, and in 2019, every single Democrat then in Congress along with several key Republicans voted for legislation to withdraw the U.S. from the war. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led intervention has continued to kill civilians in likely war crimes and driven millions of Yemenis closer to famine .

Austin, however, has never publicly distanced himself from the effort. He has not publicly commented on the Yemen war since entering private life in 2016, a source close to the Biden transition team told HuffPost, and he declined to comment for this story.

The former generals personal assessment of the Saudi-led intervention is unclear. Then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter, other Cabinet secretaries and ultimately Obama made the big decisions about the policy, while Austins job was operational, noted the source close to the transition, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. Austin wasnt in a position to question the president.

But now that hes up for the top Pentagon job, learning what Austin thought and did behind the scenes about U.S. conduct in Yemen is critical to understanding whether he has reflected on the failures of the Obama era, and whether he will deliver on Bidens promises to respond to evolving views on foreign policy among Democrats. Influential human rights and anti-war advocates and international relations analysts are paying close attention.

Wed like to see, now that theres a different hand in power, what will be done to end U.S. support for the war, said Jehan Hakim, who chairs a Yemeni-American advocacy group called the Yemeni Alliance Committee, and who noted that many members of her community mobilized for Biden. If were going to be looking at a progressive foreign policy, when will that happen?