President Trump is moving to shore up the fragile U.S.-Saudi alliance by nominating an Arabic-speaking former four-star Army general who ran the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to be U.S. ambassador to the kingdom.
Retired Army Gen. John Abizaid is being tasked with representing the United States in Riyadh after nearly two years without an ambassador in the capital of one of the two major American allies in the Middle East.
The relationship descended into crisis last month when a Saudi kill team brutally executed and dismembered an expatriate dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at a diplomatic facility in Turkey. Khashoggi’s murder outraged American allies and lawmakers, some of whom proposed severing military ties with Saudi Arabia.
But Abizaid’s nomination indicates the Trump administration wants to restore Saudi-U.S. relations to an even keel.
Abizaid served for four years as the top general in the Middle East, leading U.S. Central Command from 2003 to 2007. He retired when then-President George W. Bush opted to surge U.S. troops into Iraq, a strategy he opposed and was orchestrated by Gen. David Petraeus. He remained highly respected on both sides of the aisle.
“It has been a great mistake to leave the post vacant for two years, and that mistake was increasingly clear during the Khashoggi crisis,” Elliot Abrams, who served in the State Department during the Bush administration, told the Washington Examiner in a statement.
“The Saudis usually ask for someone who’s personally close to the president, but no such person was available, so the next best thing was a prominent general. Abizaid has experience in the region and speaks Arabic. I hope he gets confirmed and out there very fast, and not months down the road.”
A senior Senate Republican aide told the Washington Examiner: “The U.S.-Saudi relationship’s extremely important. The White House moved to solidify it, and good for them.”
“It’s not a state secret to say that there’s a lot of concern with the alliance on the Hill, but responsible adults don’t think that you blow up a critical decades-old alliance over a couple rough spots.”
Abizaid co-chaired the United States 2014 National Defense Panel that urged policy-makers to enhance and modernize the U.S. military in defense of the “current rules-based international order” — an international posture that has become the target of Trump’s America First policy in more recent years.
“To be sure, other nations have benefited and will continue to benefit. But make no mistake, America provides this international leadership because it greatly enhances America’s own security and prosperity,” said the 2014 report, produced through the U.S. Institute for Peace.
Trump regards the international order established after the Second World War as an expense for the United States — “The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world,” as he put it in his 2017 Inaugural Address. But Abizaid’s report is more consistent with the White House National Security Council’s perception of the threat posed by Russia and China and the need for increased European defense spending.
Abizaid’s new diplomatic bailiwick will allow him to address many of these issues from Riyadh, although Capitol Hill’s frustration with Saudi Arabia could complicate his position. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and other Foreign Relations members have called for a suspension of civil nuclear negotiations with the Arab state.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., want to end U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Iranian proxies in Yemen. But the administration and congressional proponents of the alliance see dangers in all those moves, if Saudi Arabia turns to China for nuclear assistance or if Iran gains the upper hand in key territory.
“The assessment on the Hill is that this is touch and go,” the Senate Republican aide said. “The alliance is deep and multi leveled and you can disrupt what you want to disrupt.”
