The Middle East Institute’s (MEI) Syria Program is pleased to convene a public panel bringing together three unique voices to reflect on Syria from the outside – events past and present, opportunities taken and missed, lessons learned and what the future might hold.
Senior Fellow, Director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs
Charles Lister is a senior fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism and Extremism Programs at the Middle East Institute. His work focuses primarily on the conflict in Syria and on issues of terrorism and insurgency across the Levant. Prior to this, Lister was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Qatar and a Senior Consultant to the multinationally-backed Syria Track II Dialogue Initiative, where he managed nearly three years of intensive face-to-face engagement with the leaderships of over 100 Syrian armed opposition groups.
Lister is a frequent source of briefings on the Syrian insurgency to political, military and intelligence leaderships in the United States and across Europe and the Middle East. He appears regularly on television media, including CNN, BBC and Al-