The increase in defense spending requires the nod of parliament, coming as Iran and Israel exchanged missiles tit-for-tat in October.
Iran plans to triple its military budget, a government spokesman said, as rivalry with Israel escalates amid Israeli military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon.
The increase in the planned defense budget is part of a proposal submitted by the government to parliament for approval, said Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokesperson on Tuesday.
“A huge increase of 200 percent has been seen in the country’s defense budget,” Mohajerani said, without giving further details.
The proposed budget will be debated, and lawmakers are expected to finalize it by March 2025.
Iran’s military spending in 2023 was about $10.3bn, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In comparison, Israel spent $27.5bn on the military in 2023, SIPRI said.
The Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank based in Washington, DC, said the United States provided at least $12.5bn in military aid to Israel from October 7, 2023 to April 2024.
In 2022, Iran’s spending on its military was $6.85bn, according to the latest available data published by the World Bank.
On Saturday, the Israeli army attacked military bases in Iran, attacking about 20 places in a few hours in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran, killing four soldiers.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said a “sense of urgency” had risen in Iran following an attack “on its soil for the first time since the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s”.
Israel’s response was long-awaited after Iran launched an array of missiles and drones at Israel on October 1, firing nearly 200 projectiles. Iran said the attack was in retaliation for attacks in previous months that killed leaders of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas and Iranian soldiers.
With increasing attacks on Israel and pressure on Iran-aligned Hezbollah, Serdar said, “Tehran’s defense doctrine has been to keep the war away from Iran, no matter what,” adding, “Now, that defense doctrine is facing major challenges because officials in Iranians see the possibility of a general war at home … it becomes more real.
On Monday, Iran said it would “use all available tools” to respond to Israel’s weekend military attack.
The US has warned Iran of “serious consequences” if it carries out further aggressive actions against Israel.
“We will not hesitate to defend ourselves. Let there be no confusion. We believe this should be the end of the exchange of fire between Israel and Iran,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council.
Source link
