An Iran Saudi Arabian conflict

Saudi Arabia doesn't have an overly big army, it came under attack once in the 20th century from Iraq in 1991 at the opening of Operation Desert Storm when several conventional Scud missiles were launched at major cities including the capital Riyadh, while these resulted in only minor deaths the Saudis didn't have to exactly fight to defend themselves, since the vast amounts of oil in Saudi Arabia (and the fact Kuwait needed to be liberated) meant the US and Britain backed them to no ends to which they would do today.



That means they still buy up hi technology (mostly air power) and have even recently ordered 72 Eurofighter Typhoon F-2s, (simply enormous aerial defence logistics), but think about this, the last time Iran was buying high technology from the US was during the Shah's time in which he had paid for 150 F-16's which were canceled and transferred to Israel and Pakistan after the revolution.

Ayatollah Khomeini had proclaimed Saudi Arabia as well as Israel at certain points of time making Saudi Arabia a potential enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran at the time was arranging its military forces executing many generals and 'Shah pilots' when Iraq attacked, several countries armed Iraq in its bloody eight year war against Iran.

Unlike the Saudi's limited (and heavily publicized) victories in Operation Desert Storm the IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) got barely any recognition of its achievements, 300 engagements were fought alone over Khark Island with Iranian F-14 Tomcats and F-4 Phantom II's against Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1's (bought from France) and several older MiG's, a ratio of 5 to 1 against Iran at the start of the war!



With no spare parts to keep the F-14 airframes intact several were cannibalized and only in the Iran Contra Affair in 1985 were spare parts for their AIM-54 Phoenix missiles acquired, because of these sanctions the Iranian Air Force was slowly being starved out of existence.



But early in the war they had proven their worth in Operation Kaman 99 and in other small instances (such as the Sultan Strike), it was in 1987 a week after the US (for the second time since 1984) stated that the Iranian Air Force was completely dead, that two F-14's using an F-4 as bait lured a strike package of Iraqi Su-22's heading for Khark Island led by two Mirage F-1's hit the lead Mirage from nearly 50 miles away with an AIM-54 head on killing their flight leader and recorded the other pilots scream in Arabic "F-14! Run! Run!" before doing just that!

You might be wondering where I'm going with this, well where I'm going with this is that Iran under heavy sanctions from the west (and only air defence and MiG-29's bought from the east) would inflict serious damage on Saudi Arabia which are backed by continue to buy the latest military hardware straight from Europe and America.

Iran pretty much relies on itself and has made hundreds of conventional ballistic missiles, air to air missiles for their F-14's and F-4's and have even managed to make several aircraft like the F-5 called the Saeqeh.

Through sheer determination they managed to defeat overwhelming odds they managed to become nearly completely self sufficient in their military (while Israel and Saudi Arabia rely completely on the United States and Europe) and you can be guaranteed if Saudi Arabia and Iran ended up fighting a war (probably air to air ship to ship across the Persian Gulf) Iran would stand it's own and again prove that self determination and courage will win them any war regardless of the odds against them!