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They had a big war with Iraq in that period and the higher spending during that time would have largely attritted away during the fighting. Since 1990, their military spending dropped to ~2% of their GDP, which is lower than US spending both as a percentage and much more so in actual money. They also had trouble with spending that money optimally due to the sanctions.
Are you sure that this is not affecting your assessment of Iran as some amazing military power?
The power to devastate is a great power in some ways, and quite weak in other ways. The Taliban is back in charge in Afghanistan.
Well, as long as the Taliban minds their own business and no longer harbors massive training camps for terrorists, I suppose they can handle Afghanistan as well as anyone.
Also, a big part of why they were able to return to power was that their leaders set up a safe governmemt in Pakistan. ...Perhaps the time has come to do something about that Pakistan situation? They're almost as bad as Iran in terms of "countries that shouldn't be allowed to have nukes." It would be a good demonstration for the world, that just having a few crappy nukes doesn't suddenly render your country invincible. With some forward bases in Iran on one side, and cooperation from India on the other, we could knock out Pakistan's delivery systems before they have a chance to fire anything.
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