Muhammad Tahir is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, where he provides incisive analysis on US foreign policy and geopolitical developments in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey. A seasoned media commentator, his opinion pieces appear regularly in MSNBC, Newsweek, the Atlantic Council’s platforms, and others.

From 2022 to 2025, Tahir served as senior manager for media and public relations at Corus International, a Washington–based global nonprofit consortium operating in thirty-eight countries. He led the organization’s international media strategy, transformed its media engagement culture, and delivered record-breaking press coverage—surpassing the combined media output of all legacy entities during his three-year tenure.

Tahir brings over twenty-five years of experience in journalism and strategic communications across four continents. From 2016 to 2022, he served as media and communications manager at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Washington, where he significantly raised the organization’s profile among US policy and media circles and launched two widely acclaimed weekly podcasts, Majlis and AfPak File. Between 2012 and 2016, he served as RFE/RL’s broadcast news director in Prague, where he led the transformation of its Turkmen-language service from a traditional radio broadcaster into a dynamic multimedia platform—achieving a 40,000% surge in digital audience and building a cross-border network of correspondents. The success was recognized by Foreign Policy. From 2003 to 2011, Tahir held key editorial and correspondent roles at RFE/RL, including as foreign affairs correspondent in Washington and news presenter and regional editor in Eastern Europe.

Tahir began his career in 1999 as a foreign affairs correspondent in Istanbul with Turkey’s largest news agency, İhlas News Agency, and later became its first bureau chief in Islamabad and Kabul. There, he covered pivotal developments in the wake of 9/11, including the collapse of the first Taliban regime and the US-led intervention in Afghanistan.

Tahir is fluent in all major languages of Central and South Asia and the Middle East. He holds master’s degrees in journalism and communications and is a frequent speaker on media, democracy, and American soft power.