Why We Worry

(Updated below)

The Joe Liebermans of the world want you to be very afraid of Iran. They want you to think that every day brings with it the possibility of our destruction at the hands of the Iranians.

That’s simply an exaggeration, similar to the ones made about Saddam’s Iraq prior to our invasion. Remember the Bush administrations talk of mushroom clouds?

An honest discussion of the threat Iran poses should be informed by the actual composition of their military. This article by the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation does it one better and compares the US Military to Iran’s in a side by side table. I strongly encourage you to check it out.

But for you lazy bums here are some highlights:

Defense spending
US: $711 billion
Iran: $7.2 billion

Total troops
US: 2,580,875
Iran: 895,000

Nuclear warheads
US: ~5,400
Iran: 0

Fighter aircraft
US: 3,538
Iran: 286

Note that this just raw data. It doesn’t represent the quality of Iran’s equipment or troops. And as the article says, it leaves out the capabilities of each country’s allies.

Update
Iran is reportedly testing missiles capable of reaching Israel.

Meanwhile, back home, John McCain is making very bad jokes about killing Iranians. After being told that US exports of cigarettes to Iran have increased under President Bush’s reign, McCain said, “Maybe that’s a way of killing ‘em.”

Can you imagine the uproar if Ahmadinejad had said something similar about Israelis?

Flickr photo from James Gordon

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