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Bottom Line Up Front Israel and Türkiye met in Azerbaijan last week in an effort to de-escalate rising tensions over each country’s growing military presence in Syria, where both states are competing for influence. Following the demise of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in late December, Iranian and Russian influence has been significantly attenuated, and filling that void has been an increasingly more aggressive role by both the Israelis and the Turks. The meeting in Azerbaijan was arranged to discuss a deconfliction mechanism and seek an open line of communication to prevent the Israeli and Turkish militaries from coming into conflict. Since the fall of…

Bottom Line Up Front The shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University is more than the loss of a popular influencer and political activist. It is a grim reflection of a society tearing itself apart—where mistrust has replaced confidence, hatred has supplanted empathy, and violence is increasingly seen as a legitimate substitute for dialogue. Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA and a prominent conservative activist, was gunned down while speaking to a student audience. The crime itself was horrific, but the aftermath was, in some ways, even more revealing. Across social media, alongside messages of sorrow and condemnation,…

Bottom Line Up Front As the war with Iran continues into its second week with no clear exit strategy in sight, the global economy remains significantly impacted as oil and gas prices increase exponentially. Iran continues to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows through. Yesterday, U.S. intelligence assets began to see indications that Iran was preparing to deploy mines within the Strait of Hormuz, which would further complicate the situation and deter tanker traffic. According to Axios, this is the largest oil disruption in history, surpassing the Suez Crisis, which disrupted…

Bottom Line Up Front After more than a month of war between the United States and Israel against Iran, the regime in Tehran has been battered mercilessly, yet many experts and the U.S. intelligence community believe that the regime will endure. According to a Washington Post report, the U.S. intelligence community assessment reinforces the view that the regime will be attenuated, yet even more hardline than its predecessor. The generation of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders was shaped by the brutal nature of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and has managed to survive, and, along the way, gained control over powerful economic pillars…

Bottom Line Up Front Iran has tasked its Axis of Resistance partners to help it thwart the assault by the militarily superior forces of the United States and Israel. The leaders of Iran’s key partners — Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) militias in Iraq — share Iran’s ideology of “resistance” against the U.S., Israel, and their Arab allies. The Axis members, all non-state actors, each have a substantial socio-political base in their countries, but they also recognize that a collapse of Iran might represent an existential blow to their movements. All of the Iran-backed actors…