Why isn't Iran a very powerful nation?

Answer 1

Because they do not know how to commercialize their own oil.

Answer 2

They only spend $5 billion on their military, where we spend $400 billion.
They have less than 10 modern ships, no modern tanks, no modern jets, no modern missiles, and no modern firearms.

Iran's main weapon is called the "recruits" and is human waves of teenagers armed with only the Koran and a plastic key to paridise. They were quite effective in the Iran/Iraq war, where huge groups of thousands of boys would overrun machineguns and beat the soldiers to death.
Iraq killed 400,000 of iranian "recruits" in an 18 month period, requiring the use of the republican guard and chemical weapons.

We would never engage these groups of suicidal teens, because any engagement would show up on the news as US soldiers massacreing unarmed boys. It would also be a huge phycological problem for any troops that did end up fighting these boys.

Answer 3

Ah I spotted you, you just asked why Iran IS powerful! Iran's main weaknesses are that their military isn't especially advanced - yet the Iran-Iraq war though about as militarily advanced as world war one (give or take) was still very deadly. Iran has come a LONG way since then.

Answer 4

I thought Iran was a powerful nation - what happened?

Answer 5

up until the late fifty's iran was a nation of goat herders and feudal tribes men. The U.S. and the U.K. found oil there and drug them out of the stone age. They haven't had that much time in the global scheme of things to get it yet. I was in that God forsaken part of the world when I was in the service in the early 80s and a more backward and ignorant bunch of Camel jockeys don't exist on the face of the earth!

Answer 6

1. Because they have a relatively smaller army than most developed nations.
2. Because they keep their women down

Answer 7

One word: Religion

Answer 8

They were colonized for soo many centuries they had not been able to produce their own inferstructure to compete against the rest of us.

Answer 9

It is in its region. Also, if you don't consider it powerful, then it's weak because it's powered by stupid religious fundamentalists, just like most muslim countries. (this is what makes them powerless)

Answer 10

Saddam stomped the crap out of them, but stopped short of destroying them.

Answer 11

Fascist dictatorship and government imposed religion for starters.