Iran's military industry has taken great strides in the past 25 years, and now manufactures many types of arms and equipments. According to Iranian officials, the country sold $100 million worth of military equipment in 2003.[1] and as of 2006 had exported weapons to 57 countries.[2][3] Iran's military industry, under the command of Iran's Ministry of Defense, is composed of the following main components:
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Iran's military industry was born under the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1973, the Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) was founded to organize efforts to assemble and repair foreign-delivered weapons.[4][5] Most of Iran's weapons before the Islamic revolution were imported from the United States and Europe. Between 1971 and 1975, the Shah went on a buying spree, ordering $8 billion in weapons from the United States alone. This alarmed the United States Congress, which strengthened a 1968 law on arms exports in 1976 and renamed it the Arms Export Control Act. Still, the United States continued to sell large amounts of weapons to Iran until the 1979 Islamic Revolution.[6]
In 1977, the Iranian Defense Industries Organization began to work on missiles jointly with Israel in Project Flower and requested a joint missile development program with the United States which was rejected.[7] In 1979, the country took the first step into manufacturing by reverse engineering Soviet RPG-7, BM21, and SA-7 missiles.
After the Islamic revolution and the start of the Iran–Iraq War, economic sanctions and an international arms embargo led by the United States coupled with a high demand for military hardware forced Iran to rely on its domestic arms industry for repair and spare parts.[8] The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was put in charge of re-organising the domestic military industry. Under their command Iran's military industry was dramatically expanded, and with the Ministry of Defence pouring capital into the missile industry, Iran soon had an arsenal of missiles.[9]
Since 1992, it also has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles, a submarine, and a fighter plane.[10]
In 2007, following events in Iran's Nuclear Program, the United Nations Security Council placed sanctions on Iran forbidding it from exporting any form of weapons.[11]
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