Ambassador Robert Ford is a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC and a fellow Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs where since 2016 he has taught about U.S. foreign policy.
A career diplomat until 2014, Ford was the U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, the Political Affairs Chief and Deputy Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad 2008 – 2010 and the U.S. Ambassador in Algeria 2006 – 2008. He also served in Bahrain, Cameroon, Egypt, Turkey and Washington. Before joining the diplomatic service he was a teacher with the Peace Corps in Morocco 1980 – 1982. He received the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage award in 2013 and in 2014 the Secretary’s Distinguished Service award, the State Department’s highest award.
Ford speaks English, Arabic and French and appears regularly in US, European and Arabic media. He has published articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic and Foreign Affairs among others and has given guest lectures at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, UCLA, Tufts, Johns Hopkins and other schools in the U.S. and Canada.