What? They single-handedly stopped the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs. They've successfully resisted several invasions by their neighbours. The world owes them for that., Whatever your stance on Bush, imagine Saddam or Assad with nukes. I'd say the Israelis have got a solid record on 'taking people on.'
Iran hasn't been around for 2000 years. Islamic Iran is very new. And their Persian ancestors were notorious for military expansionism.
KeiThZ is right. Israel's military forces are highly trained and well equipped. Iran by comparison has very weak conventional forces which only look strong when compared to its immediate neighbours. It has had limited modernization since the Iran–Iraq War and depends heavily on weapons acquired by the shah.
Equipment in its army, navy and air force are obsolete or relatively low quality imports. And while Iran now produces some of its own weapons, production rates are limited in part due to restrictions on trade with Iran. Its forces are not organized or trained to project significant power across the Gulf. Its land forces are not structured to project power deep into a neighboring state like Iraq or to deal with U.S. air-to-ground capabilities.
However, Iran has built up a powerful mix of capabilities for both regular and irregular forces to defend territory, intimidate neighbors, threaten the flow of oil and shipping through the Gulf, and attack Gulf targets. It has a dedicated force to train and equip non-state actors like Hezbollah, Hamas and Shiite extremists in Iraq—potential proxies that give Iran leverage over other states.
And it has purchased long-range missiles from North Korea in addition to defveloping its own missile systems that has given it a strike capability that partly compensates for its almost non-existant and weak air force. Furthermore, and as it widely suspected , they are rapidly working to produce fission nuclear weapons, an effort driven in large part to compensate for the very limited capabilities of their conventional forces and to deter against outside attacks on its irregular and asymmetric forces.
One other poster on this thread tried to reduce it to a strictly numbers game, whereby 500,000 Iranian troops would overwhelm a smaller force of 187,000 Isrealis. Overlooking the unlikelihood that a conventional ground warfare would be a part of Israel's strategy, I would still not bet against the Israelis; their neighbours who tried to over-run them with sheer numbers in previous wars have learned that skill backed by modern equipment can repel a larger fighting force.
Now, switching gears to address the comments made by others who don't seem at all bothered that Iran should have nuclear weapons, and who have tried to argue that the United States is the moral equivalent of the Islamic Republic of Iran, well, you need to give your head a good shake. If a person cannot see the danger and the destablizing effect that a rogue state like Iran having nuclear weapons technology will have on the world then they really have lost touch with reality.
Apologists for western liberal democracies of course have the option of moving to illiberal theological "people's" states, please be my guest. Furthermore, I would suggest that rather than cherry picking the worst from western society's past, a reasonable person would look at the big picture. Pardon my prejudice in advance (actually, no I'm not apologizing), but there is no better, or freer, or more peace loving, or more propserous ways of life than those afforded by liberal democracies.
