Iran–Iraq War
Shah Mohammed Reza had invested a lot into the modernization of the Iranian army. He was fully backed by the United States, as they supported the anti-communist stance of Iran and saw this as an opportunity to have a state that supported US interests in that region. Thus, the Shah expanded navy, air and ground forces with modern weapons and imported western trainers for the army. For this reason, Iran became more capable than Iraq, also taking into account the army officers that were almost twice as many in Iraq. However, the revolution changed this military upper hand drastically. The revolutionaries did not understand the need for extensive arming supplies and did not want to be the policeman of the US. Therefore, Khomeini and his reign immediately canceled military contracts and sent away the western trainers. Because of the sudden regime change, the morale of the officers also lowered significantly, according to Iraqi intelligence at the time. A parallel military force was created by Khomeini, as the previous officers were in danger of a potential counter-revolution. These factors caused Iran to remain with a limited military force.