Trump taps unconventional US general with history of engagement with Iran for Saudi posting
Retired US Central Command chief John Abizaid will take the helm of the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia after a career of seeking engagement with Iran.
At a time when many soldiers paced around Europe in tanks, John Abizaid first made a name for himself in the Army by ordering his troops to hot-wire bulldozers into makeshift tanks in Grenada and fighting to establish a no-fly zone to protect Iraq’s Kurds after the 1991 Gulf War.
“He wasn’t in the big tank-on-tank engagements in the first Gulf War,” said David Barno, a retired Army lieutenant general who served with Abizaid in Grenada and later in Afghanistan when Abizaid was the US Central Command chief. “He didn’t serve in the big mechanized or armored units. He was in the other part of the Army.”
