Iran's military

This is a posting Steve Sailer did last August. He checked reliable military sources to see whether it makes much sense to think of Iran as an aggressive threat to other countries in the region. What he found is interesting and perhaps surprising. Though Iran is four times as large as Iraq and has three times the population, it's not necessarily the best-armed power in the region.

Iran, for example, has about 1,585 tanks, while Israel has 4,300, Egypt has 4,300, Syria has 4,600, and even Jordan has 1,217 of them. As for aircraft, Iran has 520 planes of 1958 or 1959 vintage in poor condition, and only a little more than 100 other planes, only a few well-maintained. Israel has 550 well-maintained, mostly modern planes. Not that Iran's air force is negligible, but if they were planning military expansion they probably would have beefed it up a little more. And bought a whole lot more tanks.