Why the Middle East Doesn't Take Iran's Army Seriously

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : Today Iran has an enthusiastic, if not quite cutting-edge military-industrial complex.
53% : One of the most powerful and influential countries in the Middle East is undoubtedly Iran.
51% : The Islamic Republic of Iran sits astride several key strategic -- and often volatile -- regions, including the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Caucasus.
49% : Iran is primarily a land power, and has invaded and suffered invasion from other peoples and countries over the past several thousand years.
48% : The new rulers of Iran, skeptical of long-standing institutions historically loyal to the shah, allowed the Army to survive as an organization but developed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a counterweight.
48% : Not all of its stated achievements pan out, however; Iran claims to have designed and built the Karrar ("Striker")
48% : According to retired U.S. Army general Stanley McChrystal, "We knew where all the factories were in Iran.
48% : That being said, like the People's Liberation Army, an injection of funding -- and purpose -- could turn Iran into the dominant land power in the Middle East.
46% : As a result, Iran retains large ground forces, both in the Iranian Army itself and the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
35% : Western sanctions and arms embargoes directed against Iran created a vacuum that the country's nascent arms industry struggled to fill.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.