Trump names new US ambassador to Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON AFP NOV14, 2018- President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped John Abizaid, a top US general from the Iraq war who has studied the Middle East for years, as ambassador to Saudi Arabia amid growing friction between the longstanding allies.
Abizaid is a fluent Arabic speaker of Lebanese Christian descent who headed US Central Command, which covers the Middle East during the Iraq war from shortly after the US invasion in 2003 through 2007.
The 67-year-old wrote his master’s thesis at Harvard University about Saudi Arabia, studying how the kingdom makes its decisions on defence spending, in a paper that won acclaim in academic circles.
Trump has been slow in filling key posts amid his promises to shake up Washington. But the absence of an ambassador in Riyadh, nearly two years into his presidency, has become more glaring amid rising tensions between the countries.
Trump, who quickly forged a close relationship with Saudi Arabia upon taking office, has been forced to criticize the kingdom and its powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, after a team from the kingdom killed a Us-based critical journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.