Andrew Tabler

Andrew J. Tabler is a senior fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on Syria and U.S. policy in the Levant.

The cofounder and former editor-in-chief of Syria Today, Syria's first private-sector English-language magazine, Mr. Tabler achieved unparalleled long-term access to Bashar al-Asad's Syria. During fourteen years of residence in the Middle East, Mr. Tabler served, most recently, as a consultant on U.S.-Syria relations for the International Crisis Group (2008) and as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs (2005-2007), writing on Syrian, Lebanese, and Middle Eastern affairs. Upon completion of his graduate studies in 1994, he obtained editorships with the Middle East Times and Cairo Times; Mr. Tabler became senior editor and director of editorial for the Oxford Business Group (OBG) in 2000. The following year, he personally oversaw with OBG the first comprehensive report on Syria in more than thirty years.

Mr. Tabler has interviewed Syrian first lady Asma al-Asad, Israeli president Shimon Peres, the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, slain Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and former Lebanese prime ministers Fouad Siniora and Saad Hariri. His articles and opinion pieces on Syrian and Lebanese affairs and U.S. foreign policy have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and Foreign Policy. He has also appeared in interviews with CNN, NBC, PBS, NPR, and the BBC.

Mr. Tabler is author of In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria (Lawrence Hill Books, 2011), and the 2007 Stanley Foundation report The High Road to Damascus: Engage Syria's Private Sector.

EDUCATION

M.A., comparative politics and Arabic, American University in Cairo (AUC); Certificate, Arabic Language Institute, AUC; B.A., Washington & Jefferson College

LANGUAGES SPOKEN / READ

Arabic