Rob Danin

Rob Danin is Principal at Georgetown Global Strategies, a geopolitical risk assessment and advisory firm focused on the Middle East. He has spent his entire career working on the Middle East, as a scholar, analyst, and diplomat, including 20 years as a White House and State Department official.

Dr. Danin was a Senior Fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2010 to 2020. Danin was also a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center from 2015 to 2020 where he taught a seminar series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dr. Danin previously headed the East Jerusalem mission of the Quartet (US, EU, UN, and Russia) Envoy, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2008-2010. He continued to serve as a principal negotiator and advisor to PM Blair on Israeli-Palestinian issues from 2010 until 2017.

In the U.S. government, Danin served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs with responsibilities for Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Israeli-Palestinian issues from 2005-2008. Prior to that, he served for two years at the White House/National Security Council, first as Director for Israeli-Palestinian and Levant affairs, and then as acting Senior Director for Near East and North African affairs. Dr. Danin’s other roles at the State Department included a tour as the Middle East and Gulf specialist on Secretary of State Powell’s Policy Planning Staff, and a decade as a senior Middle East political and military analyst focusing on Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and the Palestinians.

Danin holds a doctorate in the international relations of the Middle East from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University; an MSFS degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and a BA in history from the University of California, Berkeley.