Michael Wahid Hanna

Michael Wahid Hanna

Program Director, U.S.

Crisis Group Role

As U.S. Program Director, Michael Wahid Hanna leads the organisation’s research, analysis, policy prescription and advocacy on U.S. foreign policy in conflict settings. He joined Crisis Group in May 2021.

Professional Background

Hanna works on issues of international security, international law, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and South Asia. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law. 

He has published widely on U.S. foreign policy in newspapers and journals, including articles in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Democracy, Middle East Report, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Survival, among other publications.

Prior to joining Crisis Group, Hanna was a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. He served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch in Baghdad in 2008. Previously, Hanna was a senior fellow at the International Human Rights Law Institute. From 1999 to 2004, Hanna practiced corporate law with the New York law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Fluent in Arabic, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Cairo University. He received a JD from New York University School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review.

Select Publications

  • Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East (2019)
  • Citizenship and Its Discontents: The Struggle for Rights, Pluralism, and Inclusion in the Middle East (2019)
  • Order from Ashes: New Foundations for Security in the Middle East (2018)
  • Arab Politics Beyond the Uprisings: Experiments in an Era of Resurgent Authoritarianism (2017)

Languages

  • English
  • Arabic (fluent)

In The News

15 Jan 2024
Things have been very tense [on Gaza's border with Egypt], but there are limits to how far these tensions can go on a strategic level. The National

Michael Wahid Hanna

Program Director, U.S.
7 Dec 2023
If the war goes the way it’s been going, the border between Egypt and Gaza will come under immense pressure. Reality might have a say then. The National

Michael Wahid Hanna

Program Director, U.S.
15 Nov 2023
Israel is seeking to change the reality on the ground in Gaza this time around and is not saying what exactly is its endgame. The National News

Michael Wahid Hanna

Program Director, U.S.

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