Robert S. Ford

Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow

Expertise

Defense and Security, Economics, Governance, Reform, and State Capacity, Regional International Politics, Terrorism, US Policy in the Middle East, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Turkey

Press inquiries: [email protected]

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Robert Ford

Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford is currently a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington where he writes about developments in the Levant and North Africa. Amb. Ford  retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014. In this role, Amb. Ford was the State Department lead on Syria, proposing and implementing policy and developing common strategies with European and Middle Eastern allies to try to resolve the Syria conflict. Prior to this, Amb. Ford was the deputy U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from 2008 to 2010, and also served from 2006 until 2008 as the U.S. Ambassador to Algeria, where he boosted bilateral education and rule of law cooperation. Amb. Ford served as deputy chief of mission in Bahrain from 2001 until 2004, and political counselor to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2004 until 2006 during the tumultuous establishment of the new, permanent Iraqi government. In 2014 he received the Secretary’s Service Award, the U.S. State Department’s highest honor.  He also received in April 2012 from the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston the annual Profile in Courage Award for his stout defense of human rights in Syria.  He has appeared on CNN, PBS, Fox, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC and Arabic news networks as well as in The New York Times and Foreign Policy.

Education
B.A. in international studies, Johns Hopkins University; M.A. in Middle East studies and economics, Johns Hopkins SAIS; Advanced Arabic studies, American University of Cairo

Regions of Expertise
Syria, Iraq, North Africa

Issues of Expertise
US foreign policy, economic and political development, Islamist movements

Languages
Arabic, French

Sample Interview:

April 17, 2015: An Interview with Amb. Robert S. Ford.

The Latest from Robert S. Ford

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Iraq in Between Iran and the United States
  • Podcast

    • Iraq in Between Iran and the United States

    Hosts Alistair Taylor and Matthew Czekaj are joined by MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow Amb. (ret.) Robert S. Ford to examine what is at stake for Iraq in the Iran war. The only country to have been hit by both sides, Iraq is caught in the middle of a regional conflict, with the local Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) carrying out attacks on American interests and personnel — and the US responding. This escalation comes at a period of internal political transition in Iraq, which has been locked in negotiations to form a new government since the November 2025 elections. Ford, who served as Deputy and later Acting Ambassador in Baghdad from 2008 until 2010, unpacks how Iraq is navigating the current moment, how the Kurdistan region fits into this equation, and what this all means for the future of US-Iraqi relations.

    April 9, 2026

    Alistair Taylor, Matthew Czekaj

    Iraq tries to assert state authority during crisis
    Photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters/Pool/Anadolu via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Iraq tries to assert state authority during crisis

    The Iraqi government has long navigated a path between maintaining political ties with its Iranian neighbor and Tehran’s allies inside Iraq on the one hand, and preserving its security relationship with the United States on the other. Unsurprisingly, it quickly welcomed US President Donald Trump’s June 23 Israel-Iran cease-fire agreement.

    US success in Iraq means being a more reliable partner than Iran
    Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • US success in Iraq means being a more reliable partner than Iran

    There is no quick path to limiting or reducing Iranian influence in Iraq. Tehran will react fiercely to American efforts to destroy the militias and zero-out its influence, and it would have multiple avenues to escalate through the porous 900-mile-long border between the two countries. Moreover, domestic Iraqi reaction, especially among elements of the Shi’a population, would be reticent at best and hostile at worst to intensified American military actions. Nor should it be an American goal to stoke a civil war among Iraq’s Shi’a that would give Iran new access points.

    Expert Views: How should we navigate the new rules of the game in the Israel-Iran conflict?
    Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Expert Views: How should we navigate the new rules of the game in the Israel-Iran conflict?

    The month of April saw a series of unprecedented escalations in the long-simmering Iranian-Israeli conflict, with both countries launching missile and drone attacks against the other’s territory for the first time in history.

    In the wake of these strikes, what will be the impact on the regional security and political environment going forward, what is needed to stabilize the new rules of the game, and how can US diplomacy help to facilitate that process? MEI has asked its experts to weigh in.

    Expert Views: US diplomacy and the Israel-Hamas war
    Photo by JACQUELYN MARTIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
  • Analysis

    • Expert Views: US diplomacy and the Israel-Hamas war

    What further diplomatic steps should the U.S. take to respond to the Israel-Hamas war and its broadening regional reverberations? MEI has asked a group of former U.S. ambassadors and senior government officials specializing in the region to weigh in.

    October 25, 2023

    Gerald M. Feierstein, Mara Rudman…

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