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Dr. Richard L. Russell is Professor of National Security Affairs at the Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, as well as Special Advisor to US Central Command, US Special Operations Command, and the Joint Special Operations University. He is the author of Sharpening Strategic Intelligence (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Weapons Proliferation and War in the Greater Middle East (Routledge, 2006).
Iran’s conventional military forces — ground, air, and naval — once stood tall as the best armed military forces in the Middle East aside from those of Israel. The United States lavished the most sophisticated military hardware on the Shah, who was willing and able to tap his financial resources from Iran’s oil wealth to buy modern conventional arms. The Shah had the ambition, the financial means, and the political-military backing of the United States to turn Iran into the Persian Gulf’s most formidable military power.
