First, lifting the sanctions and giving Iran "its own money back" is how they gain access to foreign currency, euros and dollars, that have the international value needed for arms purchases. Their foreign assets were frozen and financial transfers sanctioned to prevent money laundering. Their oil exports are turned into arms imports and foreign funding. Nobody wants the Iranian rial, everyone wants the petrodollar.
All this talk of military spending relative to GDP being the defining characteristic of this arms race is absolutely beside the point. A conventional arms race, say battleship construction in the lead-up to WWI, might be measurable in such a sense. But Iran is distinctively not engaged in a conventional arms race. They do not need F-16's to strike deep into Israeli territory to bomb precise targets and minimize collateral damage for the sake of foreign press. They give proxies the plans to make short-range rockets out of stove pipes and propane tanks with hacksaws and TIG welders, then they buy S-300 SAMs with their oil money to protect their nuclear reactors of
plutonium breeding peace.
For example. I had an IDF buddy inform me of over two dozen Iranian copies of the Kornet laser-guided anti-tank missile being fired at his tank company from a mosque in Gaza (said mosque lost a minaret at the 26th missile). These are heavy, crew-served ATGMs similar to the American TOW system you may be familiar with. One hit is enough to kill a tank.
A Merkava IV costs 3.5 million. A Kornet launcher and ten missiles is 0.8 million. Were it not for the TROPHY system ( 0.3 million, which was damaged on the 26th missile ) Israel could have been out fifteen to thirty million dollars for less than a million in Iranian-supplied arms, plus the immeasurable loss in human capital to Israel. A reservist with a day job as a mechatronic engineer's death impacts Israel significantly more than the five thousand dollars a formerly-unemployed Palestinian martyr earns his family.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-middle-east.aspThat said, the assertion they are somehow weaker than Israel and Saudi Arabia is not shared in circles which look beyond the budget alone. Iran fought against Iraq as quantity versus quality, right down to child minesweeping. The nation has a far higher pain threshold than Israel and perhaps Saudi Arabia insofar as casualties are concerned.
Oh, and Saudi Arabia is now allowing Israel-bound airliners to use their airspace. First time in seventy years. But they're in an active arms race and totally not uniting against Iran, right?
Iran is threatening to release the lists of Westerners bribed to bring about the Iran deal. Oh no. Please. Don't do that.
The American embassy moving to Jerusalem is causing a mass... jubilee.
I haven't seen them this happy in fifty years.
Very obscure pun there. Ten points if you spot it.
Oh, and speaking of Avenatti! You know he got $8 million dollars just before taking on Stormy's case from... well, somebody unimportant, I'm sure.