(5 of 9)
Indeed, the Iranians, in the view of military analysts, were doing surprisingly well against one of the Arab world's strongest military forces (250,000). Since 1973, using oil revenues that now amount to $30 billion annually, the Iraqis had spent $8 billion to $9 billion on military hardware, most of it purchased from the Soviet Union. The shopping list included more than 330 MiG, Sukhoi and Tupolev fighters and bombers, along with tanks ranging from the standard T-62 model to the T-12, which is considered one of the world's best. Iraq also is reported to have 1,000 huge tank transporters, acquired as a result of bitter experience. Rushing to support Syria and Egypt in the 1973 war against Israel, Baghdad dispatched its tank force on the long trek through Jordan and Syria to the Golan Heights, only to discover that most of the tanks had shattered treads and burned-out engines by the time they arrived. This time the tanks were ready to ride to battle on transporters.
To face this panoply of forces, Iran threw in units and equipment diminished by revolutionary confusion and the decimation of the military's top echelons, but still formidable in regional terms. Its air force included 445 combat planes, among them not only 188 Phantom F-4s and 166 F-5s but also 77 advanced F-14 interceptors. The principal problems with the planes as well as with the Iranian navy and ground forces: lack of maintenance and spare parts. According to Western analysts, only eight of the F-14s were airworthy and one-third of the army's 875 British-built Chieftain tanks were no longer serviceable. Army manpower was down from about 240,000 under the Shah to an estimated 180,000 as a result of desertions and purges; 250 generals had been replaced by inexperienced officers or by military-minded mullahs. Said a Pentagon expert: "In order to move full steam into a war like the one where they now find themselves, the Iranians should have been spit polishing, shining and checking that machinery day by day. Apparently a lot of it has just been sitting there since the revolution."
Still the Iranians held. Regular forces were bolstered by a hasty call-up of reserves. The current Iranian year by the solar calendar is 1359, and Iran called up the class of 1356, meaning men who had completed reserve training in 1978. In addition, each of the hundreds of mosques in Tehran was required to deliver 22 militiamen to fight Yazid, a term used for the murderers of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who is venerated by Shi'ites as a saint and martyr. Whenever air raid sirens wailed, thousands of Teh-ranis rushed to their rooftops shouting "God is great." Enthusiastic civilians almost shot down an Iranian F-4 trying to land at Mehrabad: they thought it was an Iraqi plane. Opposition parties like the left-wing Socialist People's Mujahidin and the Marxist People's Fedayan were captured by the patriotic fever and backed the war effort of President Abolhassan Banisadr's government. Even Reza Pahlavi, 19, the Shah's oldest son, who is studying at the American University in Cairo, volunteered his services from abroad as a fighter pilot.