QuoteReplyTopic: Iranian Military Posted: 13-Jul-2005 at 23:02
Although the Iranian military is very secretive they have showed off some of their equipments. Lets talk about Iran's military capabilities incase of war against aggressors. Also about Iranian military during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.
mean while here are some pictures of its military, (not that great picture but what do you expect)
Israel could not beat Iran in a conventional war if it was trying to invade, not even Iraq, that is why Israel asked America to do the dirty work for it, there are not enough Israelis to do it and they are so scared of spilling their own blood.
Funny how one of the first things America did was to look into reinstating the Kirkuk -> Haifa pipeline.
During the shah period of Reza Pahlavi, I believe Iran had the fourth most powerful army. I guess this changed after the revolution because either other countries got more powerful and more advanced or the Iranian army just weakened.
Also, Iraq was being completely supported by all western powers during the Iran-Iraq war. The Americans supported Iraq and Saddam because Iran was supposodly the less of the two "evils".
Iran gave Iran a drubbing int eh first 2 years of that war because:
- Iran had no competent military commanders most were purged, fled or were in prison one of my uncles was in Khuzestan on military service when they attacked, he said it was a calamity
- 40% of the regular army had deserted
- Iranian Airforce Pilots were mostly purged or in prison, when Iraq attacked they begged to be released to defend Iran and they were and did so like heroes. Iranian airforce was shooting Iraqi planes down 6:1, on one occassion 6 Iranian Phantom F-4s destroyed 42 Iraqi planes that were grounded near the Jordan border, they were refuelled over Iraqi Airspace.
Iraqi Airforce after these complete routings decided to go for low risk attrition targets like busy town centres, hospitals and schools, they avoided air to air combat.
Iran pushed Iraq out after 1982 and the rest of the fighting was mainly on Iraqi soil, at this point it looked like Iraq would lose, all major powers barr none started rushing aid to Saddam and that was the only thing that saved him, including WMD.
That war was indirectly equivalent to Iran vrs the world.
So Iran did not overall receive a drubbing, Saddam achieved none of his objectives and did infact lose that war and the bastard would never have dared to attack Iran prior to 1979.
Today I would say the Iranian army is much improved in terms of command structure from the 80s, where mullah warriors took control of operations and got hundreds of thousands needlessly killed, today dishonoring their memory by calling them martyrs for the "Islamic" cause, complete BS.
The Iraqis also perceived revolutionary Iran's Islamic agenda as threatening to their pan-Arabism. Khomeini, bitter over his expulsion from Iraq in 1977 after fifteen years in An Najaf, vowed to avenge Shia victims of Baathist repression. Baghdad became more confident, however, as it watched the once invincible Imperial Iranian Army disintegrate, as most of its highest ranking officers were executed. In Khuzestan (Arabistan to the Iraqis), Iraqi intelligence officers incited riots over labor disputes, and in the Kurdish region, a new rebellion caused the Khomeini government severe troubles.
AFTER nearly five years of fighting, the Iraqi Air Force has finally come into its own as an importantsome say decisivefactor in the Gulf War with Iran. It now shows a previously unseen effectiveness in ground support and tactical operations and has undertaken its first real strategic bombing campaign with at least moderate success.
Three factors have combined to bring about this air power enhancement: newer and better tactics, largely due to combat experience and French training; a recent massive influx of Soviet aircraft and ordnance; and, above all, Irans destruction of its own Air Force through political purges and lack of proper maintenance.
Iran Murders Its Own Air Force
Before Khomeini seized power on 11 February 1979, the U.S.-trained Iranian Imperial Air Force was widely regarded as second only to Israel's in the Middle Eastmore than a match for Iraq and a serious adversary for even the Soviet Union. The Khomeini regime, however, regarded it as a waste of money that rightfully belonged to the mostazafin (poor oppressed masses).
One of the new government's first acts was a purge of the armed forces, particularly the officer corps, which was (probably correctly) thought to be a hotbed of monarchist sentiment. The Air Force, where virtually the entire fighting elementthe combat pilotsis composed of officers, was especially hard hit. To make matters worse, Iran's best combat pilots had been trained in the United States and Israel, making them particularly suspect.
Like many other countries during the cold war, Iran was forced to spend a substantial part of its national income on defense, about $8 billion a year, or 27 per cent of the Government Budget. The reason for this was summed up by the Shah in a press conference early in 1976 when he stated that such expenditure was not only compatible with efforts to achieve maximum economic development, "but essential" "There is no economic power without military power", he added. The Shahanshah always stressed the importance of defense against destruction or sabotage of national development efforts. He used to say that the checks and balances that make war between the superpowers seem unlikely today, have nevertheless created the danger that smaller countries "might start adventures, here and there, and that with the impotency of the United Nations, which is very unfortunate, a country which is not prepared for these emergencies, would be the loser."
"That is why", the Shah told a 1972 press conference, "we have adopted what we call our independent foreign policy. First of all we are counting on ourselves and then on our friends, and it is very good for us to have friends. Nevertheless, we cannot allow ourselves to be taken by surprise. One day the friend on whom we are counting might not be around. So this must not result in the annihilation of your country, and because of that we are shopping for arms, the best everywhere." Iran's position was, that until there is general disarmament under international control, it cannot neglect defenses for one minute."
iran did not have the fourth most powerful army in the world, it had one of teh most powerful, definately in the top fifteen. I read an article by an Israeli attache in the Imperial army that stated it was as good as any army in Nato man for man and equipment wise, not taking economies of scale into account.
TEHRAN - The United States and Israel may be contemplating military operations against Iran, as per recent media reports, yet Iran is not wasting any time in preparing its own counter-operations in the event an attack materializes.
A week-long combined air and ground maneuver has just concluded in five of the southern and western provinces of Iran, mesmerizing foreign observers, who have described as "spectacular" the massive display of high-tech, mobile operations, including rapid-deployment forces relying on squadrons of helicopters, air lifts, missiles, as well as hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of well-coordinated personnel using live munition. Simultaneously, some 25,000 volunteers have so far signed up at newly established draft centers for "suicide attacks" against any potential intruders in what is commonly termed "asymmetrical warfare".
Behind the strategy vis-a-vis a hypothetical US invasion, Iran is likely to recycle the Iraq war's scenario of overwhelming force, particularly by the US Air Force, aimed at quick victory over and against a much weaker power. Learning from both the 2003 Iraq war and Iran's own precious experiences of the 1980-88 war with Iraq and the 1987-88 confrontation with US forces in the Persian Gulf, Iranians have focused on the merits of a fluid and complex defensive strategy that seeks to take advantage of certain weaknesses in the US military superpower while maximizing the precious few areas where they may have the upper hand, eg, numerical superiority in ground forces, guerrilla tactics, terrain, etc.
According to a much-publicized article on the "Iran war game" in the US-based Atlantic Monthly, the estimated cost of an assault on Iran is a paltry few tens of millions of dollars. This figure is based on a one-time "surgical strike" combining missile attacks, air-to-surface bombardments, and covert operations, without bothering to factor in Iran's strategy, which aims precisely to "extend the theater of operations" in order to exact heavier and heavier costs on the invading enemy, including by targeting America's military command structure in the Persian Gulf.
After this Iranian version of "follow-on" counter-strategy, the US intention of localized warfare seeking to cripple Iran's command system as a prelude to a systematic assault on key military targets would be thwarted by "taking the war to them", in the words of an Iranian military strategist who emphasized America's soft command structure in the southern tips of the Persian Gulf. (Over the past few months, US jet fighters have repeatedly violated Iran's air space over Khuzestan province, testing Iran's air defense system, according to Iranian military officials.)
Iran's proliferation of a highly sophisticated and mobile ballistic-missile system plays a crucial role in its strategy, again relying on lessons learned from the Iraq wars of 1991 and 2003: in the earlier war over Kuwait, Iraq's missiles played an important role in extending the warfare to Israel, notwithstanding the failure of America's Patriot missiles to deflect most of Iraq's incoming missiles raining in on Israel and, to a lesser extent, on the US forces in Saudi Arabia. Also, per the admission of the top US commander in the Kuwait conflict, General Norman Schwarzkopf, the hunt for Iraq's mobile Scud missiles consumed a bulk of the coalition's air strategy and was as difficult as searching for "needles in a haystack".
Today, in the evolution of Iran's military doctrine, the country relies on increasingly precise long-range missiles, eg, Shahab-3 and Fateh-110, that can "hit targets in Tel Aviv", to echo Iranian Foreign Minister Kemal Kharrazi.
Chronologically speaking, Iran produced the 50-kilometer-range Oghab artillery rocket in 1985, and developed the 120km- and 160km-range Mushak artillery rockets in 1986-87 and 1988 respectively. Iran began assembling Scud-Bs in 1988, and North Korean technical advisers in Iran converted a missile maintenance facility for missile manufacture in 1991. It does not seem, however, that Iran has embarked on Scud production. Instead, Iran has sought to build Shahab-3 and Shahab-4, having ranges of 1,300km with a 1,600-pound warhead, and 200km with a 220-pound warhead, respectively; the Shahab-3 was test-launched in July 1998 and may soon be upgraded to more than 2,000km, thus capable of reaching the middle of Europe.
Thanks to excess revenue from high oil prices, which constitute more than 80% of the government's annual budget, Iran is not experiencing the budget constraints of the early and mid-1990s, when its military expenditure was outdone nearly one to 10 by its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf who are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council; almost all the Arab states possess one or another kind of advanced missile system, eg, Saudi Arabia's CSS-2/DF, Yemen's SS-21, Scud-B, Iraq's Frog-7.
There are several advantages to a ballistic arsenal as far as Iran is concerned: first, it is relatively cheap and manufactured domestically without much external dependency and the related pressure of "missile export control" exerted by the US. Second, the missiles are mobile and can be concealed from the enemy, and third, there are advantages to fighter jets requiring fixed air bases. Fourth, missiles are presumed effective weapons that can be launched without much advance notice by the recipient targets, particularly the "solid fuel" Fatah-110 missiles that require only a few short minutes for installation prior to being fired. Fifth, missiles are weapons of confusion and a unique strike capability that can torpedo the best military plans, recalling how the Iraqi missile attacks in March 2003 at the US military formations assembled at the Iraq-Kuwait border forced a change of plan on the United States' part, thereby forfeiting the initial plan of sustained aerial strikes before engaging the ground forces, as was the case in the Kuwait war, when the latter entered the theater after some 21 days of heavy air strikes inside Iraq as well as Kuwait.
Henceforth, any US attack on Iran will likely be met first and foremost by missile counter-attacks engulfing the southern Persian Gulf states playing host to US forces, as well as any other country, eg, Azerbaijan, Iraq or Turkey, allowing their territory or airspace to be used against Iran. The rationale for this strategy is precisely to pre-warn Iran's neighbors of the dire consequences, with potential debilitating impacts on their economies for a long time, should they become accomplices of foreign invaders of Iran.
Another key element of Iran's strategy is to "increase the arch of crisis" in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where it has considerable influence, to undermine the United States' foothold in the region, hoping to create a counter-domino effect wherein instead of gaining inside Iran, the US would actually lose territory partly as a result of thinning its forces and military "overstretch".
Still another component of Iran's strategy is psychological warfare, an area of considerable attention by the country's military planners nowadays, focusing on the "lessons from Iraq" and how the pre-invasion psychological warfare by the US succeeded in causing a major rift between the top echelons of the Ba'athist army as well as between the regime and the people. The United States' psychological warfare in Iraq also had a political dimension, seeing how the US rallied the United Nations Security Council members and others behind the anti-Iraq measures in the guise of countering Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
Iran's counter-psychological warfare, on the other hand, seeks to take advantage of the "death-fearing" American soldiers who typically lack a strong motivation to fight wars not necessarily in defense of the homeland. A war with Iran would definitely require establishing the draft in the US, without which it could not possibly protect its flanks in Afghanistan and Iraq; imposing the draft would mean enlisting many dissatisfied young soldiers amenable to be influenced by Iran's own psychological warfare focusing on the lack of motivation and "cognitive dissonance" of soldiers ill-doctrinated to President George W Bush's "doctrine of preemption", not to mention a proxy war for the sake of Israel.
This aside, already, Iranians today consider themselves subjected to the machinations of similar psychological warfare, whereby, to give an example, the US cleverly seeks to capitalize on the discontent of the (unemployed) youth by officially shedding crocodile tears, as discerned from a recent interview of the outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell. Systematic disinformation typically plays a key role in psychological warfare, and the US has now tripled its radio programs beamed to Iran and, per recent reports from the US Congress, substantially increased its financial support of the various anti-regime TV and Internet programs, this while openly trumpeting the cause of "human intelligence" in a future scenario of conflict with Iran based in part on covert operations.
Consequently, there is a sense of a national-security siege in Iran these days, in light of a tightening "security belt" by the US benefiting from military bases in Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the island-turned-garrison of Diego Garcia. From Iran's vantage point, the US, having won the Cold War, has turned into a "leviathan unhinged" capable of manipulating and subverting the rules of international law and the United Nations with impunity, thus requiring a sophisticated Iranian strategy of deterrence that, in the words of certain Iranian media pundits, would even include the use of nuclear weapons.
But such voices are definitely in a minority in Iran today, and by and large there is an elite consensus against the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, partly out of the conviction that short of creating a "second-strike capability" there would be no nuclear deterrence against an overwhelming US power possessing thousands of "tactical nuclear weapons". Still, looking at nuclear asymmetry between India and Pakistan, the latter's first-strike capability has proved a deterrence against the much superior nuclear India, a precious lesson not lost on Iran.
Consequently, while Iran has fully submitted its nuclear program to international inspection and suspended its uranium-enrichment program per a recent Iran-European Union agreement inked in Paris in November, there is nonetheless a nagging concern that Iran may have undermined its deterrence strategy vis-a-vis the US, which has not endorsed the Paris Agreement, reserving the right to dispatch Iran's nuclear issue to the Security Council while occasionally resorting to tough saber-rattling against Tehran.
At times, notwithstanding a media campaign in the US, particularly by the New York Times, through news articles carrying such provocative titles as "US versus a nuclear Iran", the US continues its hard-power pre-campaign against Iran unabated, in turn fueling the national security concern of those groups of Iranians contemplating "nuclear deterrence" as a national survival strategy.
Concerning the latter, there is a growing sentiment in Iran that no matter how compliant Iran is with the demands of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency , much like Iraq in 2002-03, the US, which has lumped Iran into a self-declared "axis of evil", is cleverly sowing the seeds of its next Middle East war, in part by leveling old accusations of terrorism and Iran's complicity in the 1996 Ghobar bombing in Saudi Arabia, irrespective of the Saudi officials' rejection of such allegations totally overlooked in a recent book on Iran, The Persian Puzzle by Kenneth M Pollack (see Asia Times Online, The Persian puzzle, or the CIA's?, December 3.)
Thus there is an emerging "proto-nuclear deterrence" according to which Iran's mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle would make it "nuclear weapon capable" in a relatively short time, as a sort of pre-weapon "threshold capability" that must be taken into account by Iran's enemies contemplating attacks on its nuclear installations. Such attacks would be met by stiff resistance, born of Iran's historic sense of nationalism and patriotism, as well as by a counter-weaponization based on quick conversation of the nuclear technology. Hence the longer the US, and Israel, keep up the military threat, the more powerful and appealing the Iranian yearning for a "proto-nuclear deterrence" will grow.
In fact, the military threat against Iran has proved poison for the Iranian economy, chasing away foreign investment and causing considerable capital flight, an intolerable situation prompting some Iranian economists even to call for filing complaints against the US in international tribunals seeking financial remedies. This is a little far-fetched, no doubt, and the Iranians would have to set a new legal precedent to win their cause in the eyes of international law. Iran cannot possibly allow the poor investment climate caused by the military threats to continue indefinitely, and reciprocating with an extended deterrence strategy that raises the risk value of US allies in the region is meant to offset this rather unhappy situation.
Ironically, to open a parenthesis here, some friends of Israel in the US, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, an avid supporter of "torturing the terrorists", has recently inked a column on a pro-Israel website calling for the revision of international law allowing an Israeli, and US, military assault against Iran. Dershowitz has clearly taken flight of the rule of law, making a mockery of the esteemed institution that is considered a beacon on the hill in the United States; the same Ivy League university is home to the hate discourse of "clashing civilizations", another ornament for its cherished history. Even Harvard's Kennedy School dean, Joseph Nye, a relative dove, has replicated the US obsession with power by churning out books and articles on "soft power" that reifies every facet of American life, including its neutral culture or entertainment industry, into an appendage or "complement" of US "hard power", as if power reification of what Jurgen Habermas calls "lifeworld" (Lebenswelt) is the conditio sine qua non of Pax Americana.
The ruse of power, however, is that it is often blind to the opposite momentum that it generates, as has been the case of the Cuban people's half a century of heroics vis-a-vis a ruthless regime of economic blockade, Algerian nationalists fighting against French colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s, and, at present, the Iranian people finding themselves in the unenviable situation of contemplating how to survive against the coming avalanche of a US power led entirely by hawkish politicians donning the costumes of multilateralism on Iran's nuclear program. Yet few inside Iran actually believe that this is more than pseudo-multilateralism geared to satisfy the United States' unilateralist militarism down the road. One hopes that the road will not wind down any time soon, but just in case, the "Third World" Iranians are doing what they can to prepare for the nightmare scenario.
The whole situation calls for prudent crisis management and security confidence-building by both sides, and, hopefully, the ugly experience of repeated warfare in the oil-rich region can itself act as a deterrent.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs, co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas Maleki, No 2, 2003. He teaches political science at Tehran University.
I don't think Iran is still consider a military power but what amazes
me is that they are still able to keep there F-14s flying to this day
with no spare parts. They drained their supply of AIM-54 phoenix
missiles in 1986 and must be running out of AIM-7s and AIM-9s as
well. Whats interesting is that Iranian F-14s might still be in
service long after Americans phase it out of service.
Those Tomcats are beautiful machines, aren't they? Where does Iranian
airforce stand at the moment in terms of numbers and efficiency
compared to aerial powers like the United States and China?
They are barely a regional threat, they can only keep 25-30 Tomcats
flying at one time. Recent purchase of 65 MiG-29 won't be a
threat to Israeli F-16I's and F-15s.
The Iranian Zulfiqar [Zolfaqar] main battle tank is believed to be pieced together or developed from major components of the Russian T-72 and American M48 and M60 tanks. This tank, which is claimed to be in production in Irana, is said to be similiar in configuration to the M-48 and M-60. Other reports suggest that it bears a close resemblance to the American M1 Abrams.
One of the features of the Zolfaqar tank which has drawn the attention of the Defense Ministry is that indigenously-made parts have been used in it. The testing prototypes of the tank were tested in 1993. Six semi-industrial prototypes of the tank were produced and tested in 1997.
In April 1997 Acting Commander of the Ground Forces of the Iranian Army, Lieutenant General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani announced that the mass production of Zulfiqar tanks, which began in 1996, was still in progress. He stated that the manufacture of 520 different kinds of tank parts, 600 artillery parts, repair of 500 tanks and armored vehicles have been carried out. In late July 1997 Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran formally inaugurated a production line for the domestically manufactured Zulfiqar main battle tanks and Boragh tracked armoured personnel carriers. The facility, the Shahid Kolah Dooz Industrial Complex, will also produce the BMT-2 personnel carrier identified.
The Iranian tank is armed with a 125mm smoothbore gun fitted with a fume extractor which may be fed from an automatic loader. It is known that the Zulfiqar uses suspension like that fitted to Western MBTs such as the M48/M60 MBT. The diesel engine is not taken from the T-72 since this has a distinct exhaust outlet on the left side of the hull. This feature is absent on the Zulfiqar.
The most recent T-72 is the 'S' version. The T-72S MBT weighs 44.5 tonnes and is armed with the latest stabilized 125mm smoothbore 2A46M gun, IA40-1 computerised fire-control system (FCS) with laser rangefinder and day/image intensification night sighting system. As well as firing the normal types of 125mm separate-loading ammunition (projectile and charge), the T-72S can also fire a Svir 9M119 (NATO designation AT-11 'Sniper') laser beam-riding guided projectile to a range of 4,000m. The T-72S is powered by the V-84MS diesel engine, which develops 840hp and, with a combat weight of 44.5 tonnes, a power-to-weight ratio of 18.87hp/tonne is obtained. For greater cross-country mobility, the suspension has also been upgraded and mine protection improved.
T-72Z An upgrade has been developed in Iran called the Type 72Z in order to extend the operational life of the T-54/T-55 MBTs, and the similar Chinese Type 59 equivalent used by Iran, all of which are armed with a 100mm gun.
The existing 100mm gun has been replaced by a 105mm M68 rifled tank gun in service with Iran on the M60A1 MBT. The Armament Industries Division of the DIO probably makes this weapon because for some years it has had the capability to bore tank and artillery barrels, such as the 122mm Russian D-30.
To improve first-round hit probability, the Type 72Z has a Slovenian Fontana EFCS-3 computerised FCS. According to the manufacturer, installation of the EFCS-3 FCS enables stationary or moving targets to be engaged while the Type T72Z MBT is static or moving.
The 7.62mm co-axial and roof-mounted 12.7mm machine guns have been retained as has the ability to lay a smoke screen by injecting diesel fuel into the exhaust outlet on the left of the hull. In addition, four electrically operated smoke-grenade dischargers have been mounted on each side of the turret.
At least one example of the Type 72Z has been fitted with a roof-mounted laser warning device, probably coupled to a commander's display and the electrically operated smoke-grenade launchers either side of the turret.
Iranian sources say the upgraded Type 72Z is powered by the V-46-6 V-12 diesel engine developing 780hp. This engine has been integrated into a new powerpack, which also includes the SPAT 1200 transmission for use in automatic or semi-automatic modes. The V-46 V-12 diesel engine is also installed in early production T-72 series MBTs, such as the T-72 and T-72A, and Iran could obtain these from various sources besides Russia.
The Type 72Z's combat weight is quoted as 36 tonnes, power-to-weight ratio 21.66hp/tonne and maximum road speed is 65km/h. This compares with the T-55 MBT, which has a power-to-weight ratio of 16.11hp/tonne and a maximum road speed of 50km/h.
Last year, the Shahid Kolah Dooz Industrial Complex revealed it had developed a new ERA package that can be rapidly fixed to the T-54/ T-55, T-72 and other MBTs to improve battlefield survivability against chemical energy (CE) and kinetic energy (KE) attack. This Iranian ERA package is similar to that being made and marketed by Russia and has been installed on Russian MBTs, such as the T-80BV, for some years. The Iranian ERA armour system comprises one composite layer. This protects against KE and CE projectiles and an extra energetic material that provides protection against KE attack. Iranian sources said this system can be dropped from a height of 5m; will not be activated from small arms fire up to 30mm in calibre or grenades; and is resistant to napalm type weapons.
... it is the time for real support. We really are fighting for all the Arabs now, and we are asking for real involvement in this war. - Saddam
In the space of less than a year and a half, Iraq had gone from being the sword of the Arab world that had set out to smash the Persians to a beleaguered victim that needed the help of the Arab world.
Ey JiNanRen "I don't think is still consider a military power"
Definition of a military power...
Armed forces are the military forces of a state. They exist to further the foreign policy program of their governing body. They consist of both military and paramilitary forces. Armed force is the use of armed forces to achieve political objectives. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_power
If you meant military superpower, then say superpower... key word there , and if we are no regional threat, then what's got Ariel Sharon telling the world (more particularly the US) to be aware of Iran as a threat... a modern armies power lies in more than just its air force, don't get me wrong, its really important. Also, Iran only needs a big enough army to counter a military threat, more importantly a military threat from any neighbouring countries around it, and I think its fair to say that we are.
Edited by farohar
Humata, Hukta, Huvarashta
Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds
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Topic: Iranian Military
, and if we are no regional threat, then what's got Ariel Sharon telling the world (more particularly the US) to be aware of Iran as a threat... a modern armies power lies in more than just its air force, don't get me wrong, its really important. Also, Iran only needs a big enough army to counter a military threat, more importantly a military threat from any neighbouring countries around it, and I think its fair to say that we are.
