Trump Names New US Ambassador To Saudi Arabia

Washington, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 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 defense spending, in a paper that won acclaim in academic circles.

A California native, Abizaid graduated from the US Military academy at West Point and later won a scholarship to study in Jordan, where he honed his Arabic, which he did not speak as a child.