Ervand Abrahamian writes:

We need to take a reality check. Iran spends $6 billion a year on its armed forces; Turkey and Israel both spend more than $10 billion, Saudi Arabia $21 billion, and the Gulf sheikhdoms, which are not so much countries as petrol stations, together easily outspend Iran. Meanwhile, the US pours more than $700 billion a year into its war machine. Before the 1979 revolution, Iran allocated as much as 18 per cent of GDP to the military; the figure is now under 3 per cent. During his recent tour of the region, Dick Cheney offered to sell $36 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms to counter the Iranian threat. In a rare candid moment, a former commander of US forces in the region admitted that Iran was an ‘ant’ that could be crushed at any time.

(LRB 6 November 2008)

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