General nominated as US envoy to Saudi
The nomination of retired general John Abizaid as the 31st US ambassador to Saudi Arabia has been received with optimism in Washington as an overdue step to restore diplomacy with Riyadh.
If his nomination is confirmed, Mr Abizaid will be the first US envoy in Riyadh since 2014.
His extensive experience in the region is generating anticipation among US officials, who believe he will excel in his new post.
Mr Abizaid fought in the two Gulf wars, taught at an Omani university and wrote a thesis on Saudi Arabia at Harvard.
He will be a political force to reckon with in the Trump administration. Mr Abizaid, who is of Lebanese descent, is fluent in Arabic, which he has used in war and peacemaking in the Middle East.
James Smith, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Mr Abizaid was “an exceptional choice”.
“He is talented beyond description with a wealth of knowledge of the region,” Mr Smith said.
That knowledge, fluency in Arabic and military record earned Mr Abizaid the nickname “the mad Arab” at West Point.
During his 34 years of military experience fighting insurgency and guerrilla wars across Afghanistan and Iraq,
Mr Abizaid was known to thrive in chaos.
Coming into a position left vacant since 2014 and in the middle of frayed Saudi-US relations over Yemen and the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the retired general may feel at home in taking on another tough Middle East assignment.
Mr Smith said the new envoy’s tests would include “a fractured GCC over Qatar, the US role in Yemen, a Saudi transformation beset with challenges and a changing US-Saudi relationship as the by-product of this administration’s transactional approach to foreign policy.”
Mr Abizaid is known among those who worked with him for standing his ground and protecting the bureaucratic hierarchy in the US military and government.
Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, used the US diplomatic void in Riyadh to manage the countries’ relationship and oversee the US leader’s visit to Saudi Arabia last year.
Gerald Feierstein, a former US ambassador to Yemen and now a senior director the Middle East Institute, said Mr Abizaid’s nomination will allow real diplomatic oversight in US-Saudi relations.
Marcelle Wahba, president of the Arab Gulf States Institute and a former envoy to the UAE, has known Mr Abizaid since 2003 and later when he became Centcom commander and visited Abu Dhabi for military consultations.
“He is an excellent choice to represent the United States in Saudi Arabia,” Ms Wahba told The National. “He knows and understands the region and is held in very high regard throughout the Arab Gulf states.”
She said that “the mix of his military expertise with intuitive diplomatic skills which I witnessed during his interactions with regional leaders on some very difficult issues during the Iraq war, will help him in the new assignment”.
Mr Abizaid’s nomination will need Senate confirmation, where questions about Yemen, arms sales and the Khashoggi affair are expected.