Iran may once again be in the market to buy advanced military hardware if the United Nations arms embargo imposed on Tehran is allowed to expire in October 2020. This would allow the Islamic Republic to modernize parts of its antiquated military machine for the first time in decades.
When the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, was signed in 2015, the UN arms embargo imposed on Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution was scheduled to be lifted in October 2020.
Hungry for new military hardware and the opportunity to sell its own equipment, President Hassan Rouhani argued Iran should stick to the nuclear agreement, despite the US departure from the landmark accord in May 2018.
“If we save the nuclear deal, Iran’s arms embargo will be lifted and we can buy weapons or sell our weapons to the world,” Rouhani said November 11.
Iran’s arsenal largely consists of hardware bought by the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, before the 1979 revolution. A close US ally, the shah bought every weapon system Washington was willing to sell him.
American newspapers in the 1970s invariably anticipated Iran would not be able to fight a war without close US technical support for its advanced military hardware, not unlike Saudi Arabia today. These assessments proved inaccurate.
Despite decades under sanctions and embargoes, Iran was even able to keep the sophisticated F-14 Tomcats it had bought from the US airworthy. Tehran still maintains a fleet of them today and has even upgraded them with domestically-built equipment.
Iran prides itself on its ability to maintain its military and produce new weapons of its own.
The Islamic Republic has built several different kinds of ballistic missile, which have become increasingly accurate and lethal.
It has also made progress in the manufacture of armed drones – mirroring the success of Israel and Turkey.
Iran routinely boasts of its self-sufficiency and ability to overhaul even the most sophisticated jet fighters in the world.
The Islamic Republic’s air force recently announced several new self-sufficiency projects. “Several samples of different upgraded drones designed for various operations as well as a plan for concurrent operations of drones and fighter jets were unveiled” in a recent ceremony, according to Fars News.
Among the aircraft on display were old US-built F-4 Phantom II which had been overhauled. Another project to build F-4 radars was also exhibited.
The F-4 is a Vietnam War-era third-generation jet fighter. While formidable, it is nevertheless very old and has largely been removed from service by air forces around the world.
Turkey is the only country in the region besides Iran that continues to fly F-4s, and Ankara is keen to retire them. It initially intended to replace them with American fifth-generation F-35s but was suspended from that program after it bought Russian S-400 air defense missiles. Turkey is presently considering an order of Russian Su-35 jets instead.
Iran has also made substantial headway in reverse-engineering weapons. For example, it reverse-engineered the American RQ-170 Sentinel based on the unit that went down in Iran in December 2011 and even sent one into Israeli airspace.
Nevertheless, Iran has had less success in building formidable modern fighter jets. The few examples it has built, such as the Kowsar, are based on much older platforms like the F-5, albeit with upgraded avionics.
If Iran is permitted to buy weapons from abroad after October 2020, there is speculation it will buy Russian Su-30 air superiority fighters and S-400s.
This would modernize Iran’s air force substantially, giving it the most advanced air superiority fighter it has operated since purchasing its fleet of F-14s in the late 1970s and a smaller fleet of Russian MiG-29 Fulcrums in the early 1990s.
However, Russia has in the past canceled proposed arms sales to Iran under pressure from the United States. Even the S-300s Iran received from Moscow in 2016 were delivered nine years after Iran ordered them due to American and Israeli pressure.
In 2016, Iran contemplated buying Su-30s along with a large fleet of 300 T-90 main battle tanks. It ultimately bought only 24 T-90s and sent them all to Syria to assist President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
In 2015, it was also speculated that Iran might buy warplanes from France. While Iran does operate a fleet of ex-Iraqi Air Force Mirage F-1s, which were flown to Iran during the 1991 Persian Gulf War to evade destruction, French jets were never likely to be Tehran’s first choice since French-made aircraft make-up such a small component of Iran’s air force.
Iran does not merely have arms imports in mind. The lifting of the arms embargo would also open up opportunities to export its own domestically developed weaponry.
Iran’s Tasnim News reported that Russia offered to buy some of its domestically-made drones during the 2019 International Aviation and Space Show in Russia (MAKS).
Tehran has not traditionally exported a large amount of arms. Under the shah, however, Iran did sell older variants from its F-5 fleet to various countries. On one occasion, the shah even gifted 25 F-5s to Jordan.
Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has supplied its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon with thousands of rockets, many of them very accurate and capable of reaching any part of Israel.
It also supplied Iraq with Russian Su-25 attack planes to help Baghdad defend itself against the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014. Ironically, those same Su-25s were part of the same Iraqi Air Force fleet that fled to Iran in the Gulf War.
In August 2018, Iran signed a deal to help rebuild the Syrian military.
Ultimately, however, it is unclear what will happen if the UN arms embargo is lifted in October 2020.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency, in a new report on Iran’s military power, predicts: “With these opportunities, we could begin to see significant changes in Iranian strategy and capabilities, as Iran becomes a more traditional military force.”
While Iran might well seize this opportunity to modernize parts of its military with new weapons, it is unlikely all of its armed forces will transform into “a more traditional military force” any time soon.
This is because Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is much more powerful than the regular military, will likely continue to use asymmetric and unconventional military tactics to confront and deter its adversaries.
