Despite numerous exercises and an arms buildup, Iran's conventional military forces remain weak and unable to fight the United States. A leading U.S. analyst said Iran's military has not recovered from the 1980-88 war with Iraq and remains saddled with aging equipment and a poor command structure. The analyst said many of Iran's weapons were based on 1970s technology and that Teheran could not sustain an invasion of a foreign country."Whatever plans have been announced and whatever grandiose reports have sometimes surfaced, Iran has not been able to acquire significant numbers of modern aircraft," Anthony Cordesman, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. "It has not been able to reconfigure and rebuild its major surface ships. It has imported surface-to-air missiles, but some of those missiles are more than a quarter of a century old in terms of design and technology." Addressing a seminar on Iran's military power, Cordesman, a former senior Defense Department official, said Iran has been unable to develop sensors and command and control systems required to fight a war against the United States. Iran spends about $3 billion a year for defense, less than one-sixth of the expenditure of Saudi Arabia.
| Iran and Iraq fought to a draw over eight years. We took 100 hours to throw Iraq out of Kuwait, two weeks to take the whole country. Iran is going to be harder? |