BORDERS: Iran is an arid, mountainous country surrounded by deserts and even more mountains. Invading Iran is therefore damnably difficult, but the same things that protect Iran also tend to stymie expansion.
RESOURCES: Iran’s mountains hold mining potential, but for over a century it’s been all about an overdependence upon oil, oil, oil.
DEMOGRAPHY: Iran’s population is the largest in the Persian Gulf region, but a crash in birthrates after the 1979 revolution makes Iranians much older than their peer Gulf Arab populations.
MILITARY MIGHT: Iran has not one, but two armies. Both are fiercely loyal to the country’s ruling elite, outfitted with primarily reworked Soviet matériel, and are as likely to fire on domestic agitators as external armies.
ECONOMY: Oil exports form the country’s export basis, distantly followed by low-grade industrial and agricultural products such as cheap steel, dates, pistachios, and carpets. All are subject to one of the strongest sanctions regimes in history. The economy is . . . struggling.
OUTLOOK: Cast in the role of troublemaker for four decades, Iran has recently experienced mammoth success in disrupting its foes. Now that Iran has more or less won regional leadership, it is woefully ill prepared to protect its gains.
IN A WORD: Winner?