Iran Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Defense Ministers' Meeting on June 26, 2025 in Shanghai, China. (Fu Tian via Getty Images)
Vehicles waiting to be loaded onto roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ships for export on August 12, 2025, in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province of China. (Getty Images)
A worker inspects the form of the shaped steel billets following the press stage in the manufacturing process of 155mm caliber shells at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania on April 16, 2024. (Getty Images)
Clashes erupt between Georgian police and protesters on the second day of protest against "foreign agents" bill, in Tblisi, Geogia on March 08, 2023 (David Mdzinarishvili via Getty Images)
Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei makes a speech during his meeting with senior officials and members of the air force in Tehran, Iran on February 08, 2020. (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Senior Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Mehdi Khalaji
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The Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tharir holds its Friday prayer at the Parliament Square on March 21, 2019 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The goal of Hizb ut Tharir is the implementation of the Islamic Sharia law. (Ole Jensen/Getty Images)
Director of the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University
Lorenzo Vidino
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Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (R) with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as the new government is presented after the Iranian Revolution. (Photo by Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images)
Director of the American Foreign Policy Council’s Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
M. K. Kaya
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Central Asia-Caucasus Inst. & Silk Road Studies Program
Svante E. Cornell & M. K. Kaya
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Mourners carry the coffins of slain Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and eight others during a funeral procession in Iraq on January 4, 2020. (Photo by MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP via Getty Images)
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Doha Center, Director of the Proxy Wars Initiative, Carnegie Corporation
Ranj Alaaldin
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Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends ''Vision 2023 Turkeys National Education Ministry'' meeting at Bestepe National Congress and Culture Center on October 23, 2018. ( Murat Kula/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Political scientist specializing in national security
Rebecca Fradkin
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani review the honor guard during official welcoming ceremony at Saadabad Palace in Tehran, Iran on April 7, 2015. (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)