Retired general tapped to be US ambassador to Saudi Arabia
AFP
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has nominated a retired air force general to be the next US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a key US ally in the Middle East, the White House said Thursday.
Retired brigadier general James B. Smith's nomination to the sensitive diplomatic post in Riyadh came a day after Obama visited Saudi Arabia at the start of a Middle East tour and a major effort to reach out to the Muslim world.
Although he has had a distinguished military career that included combat sorties as an F-15 pilot during the 1991 Gulf War, Smith's resume shows little other direct experience with the Middle East.
In other notable nominations, Obama tapped David Jacobson, a lawyer who currently is the White House special assistant for presidential personnel, to be his ambassador to Canada.
Carlos Pascual, a former career foreign service officer and foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, was nominated to be ambassador to Mexico, the White House said.
Donald Gipps, Obama's director of presidential personnel and a former chief domestic policy adviser to then vice president Al Gore, was nominated to be the US Ambassador to South Africa.
Kenneth Merten was nominated to be US ambassador to Haiti, where he has served several times in the course of a 22-year career as a foreign service officer.
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