Iran's military spending (as percentage of GDP) is fairly similar to that of the U.S. and European countries. The most recent numbers I could find (from 2024) indicate that they spent 2.0% compared to 3.4% in the U.S. [1], although there have been reports that military spending has increased significantly in the most recent budget.

I agree with the sentiment that the humanity should focus on producing something more useful than bombs, but bringing it up specifically when talking about Iran comes off as a bit disingenuous, especially when they have been recently bombed by both the U.S. and Israel. [2] Imagine the roles were reversed: How would we react to an Iranian or Russian citizen suggesting that the U.S. or an European country should focus on infrastructure instead of building an army?

[1] https://milex.sipri.org/sipri

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/22/satellite-images-sh...

In Iran one of the armies (IRGC) controls most of the economy, including agriculture, dam building and exports, three areas which are very linked to the water mismanagement. Add the fact that their generals are getting rich through corruption you can imagine the situation is a bit different than the US army

Regardless the budget you are quoting does not include the billions that are invested yearly on Hezbollah, Hamas, PMF and Houthis which are strategically considered and used as an extension of their armed forces

What are talking about? Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles ( before the 12 day war) , not to mention funding the proxies ( ring of fire). If it invested the money in water infrastructure instead of nuclear weapons or Hizbollah they would not be in such dire situation.