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.