Figures released by Iran\u2019s\ngovernment for the fiscal year 2019-2020 reveal significant budget cuts in\nmilitary spending. US sanctions have forced Iran to reduce parts of its defense\nbudget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unveiled on December 8, the\nbudget shows an overestimation <\/a>of revenues according to the\nMajlis Research Center. The figure is projected at 4,845 trillion rials or $37\nbillion (per open market exchange rate of $1 = 13,000 rials). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tehran will be forced to\nre-balance its budget before Parliament finalizes it. This will result in some $5.5 billion being cut from the\nprojected revenues<\/a>. The revised military budget for Iran\nwill also be negotiated in Parliament. In recent weeks, Iran\u2019s joint armed\nforces commanders have held closed-door meetings in Parliament to urge it to\napprove higher military allocations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However,\nfigures released show a significant reduction in Iran\u2019s defense budget<\/a>. The Defense Ministry\u2019s allocation\ndropped from 26,000 billion tomans last year to 9,800 billion tomans in\n2019-2020. The Minister of Defense Amir Hatami has pressured Parliament\nfor a larger budgetary allocation<\/a>. Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah\nAli Khamenei supports Hatami\u2019s demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the US targeted killing\nof the Qods Force Commander, Qasim Soleimani<\/a>,\narticle 3 of a new parliamentary bill approved an additional allocation of 200\nmillion euros from Iran\u2019s National Development Fund to strengthen the elite\nforce. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Chief Hossein Salami\nexpressed gratitude for the ratification<\/a> of the so-called \u201cHard Revenge\u201d\nbill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IRGC and the paramilitary\nBasij Forces budgetary<\/a> allocations slightly increased as\nwell. The IRGC will receive 18,315 billion tomans in the new fiscal year\ncompared to 15,000 billion tomans the previous year. The Basij Forces will get\n1,746 billion tomans compared to 923 billion tomans in 2018-2019. In return,\nthe IRGC and Basij have vowed to rebuild Iran\u2019s infrastructure damaged by\nrecent floods and earthquakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brigadier General Salami says\nIran is in an economic<\/a> war, referring to US sanctions, and\nmust build a military front to eradicate poverty. He insists the IRGC will use budgetary\nallocations to generate employment<\/a>. Unemployment and underemployment\nin Iran have led to frequent and deadly protests in recent years. This may\nexplain the higher budgetary allocation this year to the Iranian Disciplinary\nand Security Forces, responsible for maintaining internal security, of 17,444\nbillion tomans compared to 11,521 billion tomans last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The army will be hit the hardest\nby the latest budgetary cuts. The army keeps the borders safe and develops\nIran\u2019s defense industry. At times, it is pressured by the IRGC to reallocate\nresources to supporting trans-border military operations, but it does so\nreluctantly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The army is also reluctant to\nfight a war during sanctions. The Defense Ministry supervises army budgetary\nallocations and says Iran will not start a war with any country. The supreme\nleader says Iran will try to avoid war<\/a>.\nTo avert war and deter enemies from attacking Iran, Commander of the Iranian Army<\/a> Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi insists\nIran is well equipped to defend itself. \nIran\u2019s Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh says the army\u2019s\ndefense systems are indigenous<\/a>, which means less spending on\nforeign supplies. Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Bagheri\nsays Iran is able to meet all its defense<\/a> needs despite budget constraints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After talks with Parliament\nconclude, the army could receive a slightly higher allocation this year of\n11,978 billion tomans compared to 10.24 billion tomans last year. The budgetary\nfigures do not indicate a reduction in defense administrative expenditures\nwhich are used to pay military personnel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Admiral Habibolah Sayyari, head\nof the army\u2019s deputy coordinating staff told Parliament<\/a> that Iran\u2019s army personnel are\nunderpaid while taking on roles to rebuild flood and earthquake hit areas near\nthe borders. Some army personnel work several jobs to make ends meet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Retired army officers are likely\nto be hit the hardest by the budgetary cuts. According to Abulfazl Hossein\nBeighi, a member of the Iranian Parliament\u2019s Security Commission, the army\nretirement fund<\/a> faces a deficit of 3,000 billion tomans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Parliament has taken steps to\nincrease the salaries<\/a> of the armed forces, but that may not\nbe enough. Under Iran\u2019s laws, army\npersonnel must receive salaries that are 20 percent higher than employees in\nother government sectors. Members of the armed<\/a> forces currently receive salaries that\nare 15 percent less than other government employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since May 2019, it was expected\nthat Iran would cut its military<\/a> budget because of US sanctions, so\nthe government\u2019s decision to tighten military budgetary allocations has not\ncome as a surprise.But the latest\nbudgetary trends reveal some of Iran\u2019s military plans and challenges for the\nyear ahead. Clearly, Tehran has no intention to alter its trans-border\noperations carried out by the IRGC. It will also aim to address poverty and\nprotests by dividing tasks and resources among the IRGC, Basij and Disciplinary\nforces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After recently ending its\ncommitments to the nuclear<\/a> deal, it is possible for Iran to allocate\nfresh funds to developing its nuclear industry. Tehran has not stated where the\nfunds may come from, but the National Development Fund may be used for this\npurpose. The new Qods Force Commander, Brigadier Ismaeel Gha\u2019ani has announced jihadist<\/a> plans to mobilize Iran\u2019s nuclear\nindustry to liberate the first and second Qiblas of the Muslim world, referring\nto Makkah and Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran is prepared to return to the\nnuclear deal if all parties commit to upholding it, so its provocative military\nstatements could all be bluffs. What is unsettling to Iran is that its own\ninternal estimates suggest that if US sanctions continue, it will need to\nreduce military spending<\/a> by approximately 77 percent in the\nlong haul. In that event, it is unclear\nhow Iran\u2019s defense doctrine will evolve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sanctions may weaken Iran\u2019s\nmilitary capabilities. Since 2019, sanctions have been enforced on Iranian\ncompanies and banks<\/a> that transferred hundreds of millions of\ndollars to the IRGC and the Defense Ministry via countries like Turkey and the\nUnited Arab Emirates. The United States has also designated the IRGC as a\nterrorist organization, and it may proceed to designate Iran\u2019s Defense Ministry\nas a terrorist<\/a> body, following the Iranian Parliament<\/a>\u2019s\ndecision this week to name the entire US Defense Department as a terrorist body\nfollowing Soleimani\u2019s death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It remains to be seen how\nsanctions will alter Iran\u2019s cross-border military expeditions especially as it\nprepares revenge attacks for Soleimani\u2019s killing. Iran\u2019s Supreme National\nSecurity Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani has unveiled tentative plans to hit 13\ntargets<\/a> abroad, possibly including US military bases in the\nGulf region. He says Iran will hit US targets and military personnel, and will\naim to destroy American bases if the US retains forces in them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Figures released by Iran\u2019s government for the fiscal year 2019-2020 reveal significant budget cuts in military spending. US sanctions have forced Iran to reduce parts of its defense budget. Unveiled on December 8, the budget shows an overestimation of revenues according to the Majlis Research Center. The figure is projected at 4,845 trillion rials or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2938,162,708,108,3865,28,2723],"class_list":["post-7330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-budget-bill","tag-economic","tag-nuclear-deal","tag-parliament","tag-soleimani","tag-tehran","tag-us-sanctions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7332,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7330\/revisions\/7332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}