Last month, Gen. Joseph Votel (Ret.) led a Middle East Institute delegation to Syria. The team was made up of American businesspeople and subject-matter experts who met with senior interim government officials and assessed conditions in post-Assad Syria. This trip was inline with MEI's standing as a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization in Washington, DC, dedicated to increasing understanding of the Middle East and strengthening US-Middle East partnerships through robust political, economic, and cultural programming.
The Middle East Institute has released the Syria trip report A New Day in Syria: Opportunities for Reconstruction and Renewal in parallel to the recorded debrief. This 2025 Syria Trip Debrief provided context for the report and deeper insight into the recommendations mentioned. Among the given recommendations, the debrief discussed the suggestion that the United States needs to urgently act upon strategic opportunities to assist Syria's post-war transition.
Please click here to access our Syria trip report.
Speakers
General Joseph L. Votel, USA (Ret.) (Moderator)
Distinguished Military Fellow, Middle East Institute
Mary McInnis Boies
Counsel, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Amb. (Ret.) Stuart E. Jones
President, Middle East Institute
Charles Lister
Senior Fellow & Director of the Syria Initiative, Middle East Institute
Extended Speaker Biographies
General Joseph L. Votel (Ret.) is a Distinguished Military Fellow at MEI. He retired as a four-star general in the United States Army after a nearly 40-year career, during which he held a variety of commands in positions of leadership, including most recently as commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) from March 2016 to March 2019. In his role at CENTCOM, Gen. Votel oversaw military operations across the region, including the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Before CENTCOM he was the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Mary McInnis Boies is Counsel to Boies Schiller Flexner LLP specializing in antitrust and corporate commercial litigation. Previously, she was the founder and managing partner at Boies & McInnis LLP. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has served on its Board of Directors and chaired its Committee on Nominations and Governance. She served on the Board of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies and the Executive Committee and Dean’s Council of the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a Vice Chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan nonprofit that connects best practices in the private sector to our national security agencies.
Amb. (Ret.) Stuart E. Jones is the 18th President of the Middle East Institute. He came to MEI from Bechtel Corporation, a global engineering, construction, and project management firm where he retired as a senior vice president and President for Regions and Corporate Affairs. Amb. Jones served for three decades as a US Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State. This included serving as US Ambassador to Iraq (2014-2017) and as US Ambassador to Jordan (2011-2014).
Charles Lister is a senior fellow and the director of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute (MEI), where he focuses on Syria, terrorism, and insurgency across the Levant. His work also covers broader regional security dynamics and the evolution of jihadist movements, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). Mr. Lister is concurrently a Senior Consultant to the Karam Shaar Advisory; the Founder of Syria Weekly; and a consultant to the United Nations' International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) for Syria. Mr. Lister also serves as an expert witness and advisor on counterterrorism for US, European, and Australian law enforcement and judicial bodies.