Charles W. Dunne is a former US diplomat with service in the Middle East, South Asia, and Washington. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington D.C. and a scholar with the Middle East Institute. Since 2019, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, where he teaches courses on US foreign policy and political change in the Middle East.
For 24 years he served in the U.S. Foreign Service, with overseas tours in Cairo, Jerusalem, and Madras (Chennai), India. In Washington, Dunne’s assignments included Foreign Policy Adviser to the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy at the Joint Staff in the Pentagon (2007-2008), and Director for Iraq at the National Security Council, from 2005-2007. He also served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, where he contributed to the development of presidential initiatives to advance political reform and democracy in the Broader Middle East and North Africa.
After leaving government, Dunne was Freedom House’s Director of Middle East and North Africa programs from 2011-2015, in which capacity he directed a Washington staff and three regional offices focused on implementing human rights and democracy projects with civil society partners in the region.
US foreign policy; democracy and human rights; Egypt; Iraq; regional security; and counterterrorism.