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文|Severn
Iran, a Middle Eastern country with barren land and covered in rolling mountains and deserts.
Since the 70s of the last century, Iran has been frequently targeted and sanctioned by the United States due to its rich oil and gas resources.
To this day, Iran is still under the pressure of the Western world.
However, in such a harsh environment, Iran has grown into the leading power in the Middle East.
Both the size of the economy and the military strength are enough to be proud of the Middle East.
So how did Iran go from a barren and sanctioned country to a Middle Eastern power?
Iran's doom
Iran is a thousand-year-old country located in the heart of Western Asia.
Its territory is vast, larger than that of the four countries of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain combined.
However, Iran's territory is mostly made up of long mountains and vast deserts.
Therefore, Iran seems to be a huge country, but in fact it is a country with very poor land and a relatively harsh natural environment.
In addition, there is a general lack of water in all regions of Iran, except for the southwest Khuzestan Plain, which can be irrigated by rivers, most of the rest of the region needs to rely on natural precipitation, stream water, and qanats to meet the minimum water demand.
At the same time, due to the high mountains and vast deserts, the society in Iran is far apart from the production units, even isolated from each other.
Typical Iranian villages, all of which are small, live in self-sufficiency and isolation, and it is almost impossible to form large-scale production and settlement units.
The drought of the land and the estrangement between social units jointly curbed the rise of feudal society and the state.
Thus, while the rest of Eurasia has developed a hierarchical pyramidal power structure, Iran remains in an "arid-isolated" society, maintaining its independence and freedom for a long time.
But at the same time, this kind of geographical situation and national conditions are also destined to start Iran's modern society later than other countries, which has slowed down Iran's development to a certain extent.
Not only that, but after finally transitioning to modern society, Iran soon ushered in the crazy targeting and sanctions of the European and American worlds.
In 1979, Washington announced the freezing of all Iranian assets in the United States on the pretext of the "hostage crisis", and united with the United Kingdom and other European countries to launch an all-round economic and trade blockade against it.
No country is prohibited from exporting goods to Iran, nor is it allowed for other countries to purchase Iranian goods, including oil.
Iran lost its oil market, and its oil production plummeted from 5.23 million barrels per day in 1978 to 3.1 million barrels per day in 1979, reaching a low of 800,000 barrels at its peak.
At the same time as the oil trade suffered a devastating blow, Iran's national finances immediately fell into crisis and the economic situation deteriorated.
Under the joint encirclement and suppression of the United States and Britain, the Mossadegh government in Iran was finally overthrown.
In 1984, the White House defined Iran as a sponsor of terrorism, and a series of sanctions followed, including a ban on Iran's acceptance of support from international financial institutions and restrictions on foreign trade exports.
In 1987, under the guise of Iran's support for "terrorism," the United States signed a decree prohibiting the import of Iranian goods and services.
When negotiations failed, Washington launched the "Praying Mantis" program in April 1988 to punish Iran by force.
Then, in 1995, the White House passed a number of presidential executive decrees prohibiting American companies from investing in Iran's oil industry and prohibiting the export of American goods and technology to Iran.
In the new century, after the news of Iran's development of nuclear weapons came out, the United States did not hesitate to use the hands of the United Nations to pass several rounds of sanctions against Iran.
During this period, U.S. sanctions focused more on pressuring Iran to limit its nuclear activities.
After 2010, the United States focused its sanctions on Iran's main economic sectors, such as energy, transportation, and banking.
To this day, the joint oppression of Iran by the European and American worlds continues.
In April 2023, the EU just passed the seventh round of sanctions against Iran.
In August of the same year, seven senior officials of the Iranian government were added to Canada's sanctions list.
The endless suppression of Iran by the European and American world seems to have become a common practice.
However, it is precisely in this limited and repressed situation that Iran has not been defeated, but has grown into the leading power in the Middle East.
Strong Iran
Iran's strength can be reflected in only two aspects, one is military, and the other is economic.
In the military field, Iran has the strongest army in the entire Middle East, ranking 17th in the world in terms of comprehensive combat effectiveness.
As the most extensive country in the Middle East, Iran has a formidable armed force.
It is reported that the Iranian army is mainly composed of two sides: 600,000 government troops and 400,000 Islamic Guards.
Behind the million-strong division, there are more than 240 formed military industrial bases and 12,000 military weapons research institutes.
They have provided the Iranian army with more than 900 fighter jets, more than 1,400 main battle tanks, 6,500 artillery pieces of various types, and more than 2,700 large and small ships.
More importantly, Iran also has a three-dimensional, all-round missile system.
According to reports from Iranian and domestic media, Iran has formed a full-coverage ballistic missile system with more than 3,000 missiles of various types.
Judging by the existing launch vehicle capabilities, Iran has even long had the ability to launch ICBMs, but it has not been publicly unveiled and tested.
In addition, Iran has built a number of missile bases, including the Bakhtaran missile base, the Bandar Abbas missile base, the Imam Khomeini space center, and many more.
According to the analysis of the international community, Iran is fully equipped with the supporting technology for the production of conventional missiles.
From 1991 to 2020, Iran tested missiles 173 times, with a success rate of more than 90%.
In terms of range, Iran's missiles can completely cover all Israel, Saudi Arabia, and all US bases in the Middle East, and even threaten southern Europe and South Asia.
And this is also the reason why the Americans hate Iran to the core, but they do not dare to launch a large-scale military attack on it.
Iran's strength is also reflected in the economic field.
The data shows that Iran's GDP growth rate will be 4% from 2022 to 2023, and the total GDP size will reach 409.5 billion US dollars, ranking 17th in the world.
Despite the global economic downturn and the sanctions imposed by the Western world, Iran's economy has still shown a certain degree of vitality.
Wholesale, retail, transportation, petroleum, communications and other industries have all achieved considerable growth.
According to the Iranian News Agency, Iran's total oil trade revenue in the first five months of 2023 will exceed 19 billion US dollars, which will boost GDP growth by 2%.
Judging from the current economic situation, the inflation problem will not have an impact on Iran's social production, and the prices of basic daily necessities of the people in Iran are relatively stable, and the social order is stable.
In addition to the steady increase in total GDP and the stability of the economic market, Iran is also constantly strengthening economic and trade exchanges with other countries in the world.
Iran's exports of non-oil goods to Iraq reached $1.228 billion from March to May 2023, an increase of 15% from the same period of the previous fiscal year, according to data from the Iranian Customs Administration.
At the same time, Iran is planning to start negotiations with Pakistan on trade barriers to improve trade relations between the two sides, and both countries have agreed to take concrete steps to facilitate business investment.
In 2022-2023, Iran's trade in goods exports reached 160 million tons, and the trade volume reached $112.8 billion, an increase of $11.38 billion over last year.
It is not difficult to see that despite the tremendous pressure of Western sanctions, Iran's economy still maintains a certain vitality, which is better than expected.
There are two main factors that support Iran's ability to stand out from the encirclement despite its own poor conditions and Western sanctions.
Resources plus geography
First of all, the rich oil resources are the foundation of Iran's rise.
Countries in the Middle East have always had a lot of oil, and Iran is one of the best.
With a huge oil reserve of 158.4 billion barrels, Iran is firmly the fourth largest oil reserve country in the world.
The first oil well in the Middle East, the Majidi oil well, is located in southwest Iran.
Currently, Iran is the world's most important oil producer, producing 3.8 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Iran not only has sufficient oil reserves and large oil production, but also has good quality oil and gas resources, which is convenient for exploitation.
Most of Iran's oil and gas fields are concentrated in the front of the Zagros Mountains and the Persian Gulf basin, which is more convenient for exploitation.
According to the statistics of relevant organizations, Iran currently has as many as 196 high-quality oil fields, and nearly 10 of them can be extracted with a capacity of more than 5 million tons.
It is not enough to have abundant oil and gas, how to sell these resources to all over the world, in exchange for the necessary funds and resources for national development, is the key.
In this link, Iran's high-quality geographical location has played the greatest role.
Iran is located on the main transportation route of the Eurasian continent, which was the junction of Eastern and Western political blocs during the Cold War, and is now the intersection of major political interests in the world.
Most crucially, Iran holds the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important strategic waterway.
As one of the world's 16 strategic waterways, it is a key node that any country must control if it wants to establish hegemony.
The Strait of Hormuz is 70 kilometers wide on average, 40 kilometers at its narrowest point, and the actual channel is just over 600 meters wide.
The reason why this narrow waterway is important is that it is the throat of the Persian Gulf, the world's largest oil and gas reservoir.
After World War II, most of the oil from the Arabian Peninsula and Iran had to be shipped through the Persian Gulf, and Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern countries also relied on this shipping lane.
According to statistics, more than 70% of the world's oil needs to be transported to all parts of the world through here.
And Iran, which controls the Strait of Hormuz, collects a lot of tolls every day.
In the event of an incident that threatens national security, Iran can block the strait, directly block it by laying mines and launching missiles, and cut off the Persian Gulf from the outside world.
By then, more than 90% of the world's countries will face energy shortages.
International crude oil prices are bound to soar, and the global economy is bound to suffer heavy losses.
It is precisely for this reason that the United States has not dared to lay a dead hand on Iran, and this is also the basis for Iran's development and rise.
epilogue
Despite its poor land situation and more than half a century of Western sanctions, Iran has emerged as the leading power in the Middle East.
Whether it is economic or military, it is enough to rank among the top 20 in the world.
The key to all this lies in Iran's excellent geographical location, coupled with the abundant resources contained in the huge territory.
Therefore, as long as Iran holds the Persian Gulf for one day, as long as the oil resources in the Middle East are not exhausted, the United States cannot do anything about Iran.
Resources
- HU Mengxue. Research on U.S. sanctions policy against Iran[D].China Foreign Affairs University,2023
- ZHOU Qizhong, YAN Weidong, LIU Zengjie, et al.Analysis of the status of oil and gas resources in Iran and the impact of the US-Iran game[J].Land & Resources Information,2018(11):31-35.