I'm not implying that Pakistani or Iranian engineers are inferior to Russian, French, American or Chinese but those nations have the necessary budgets.
Ask yourself, what would Iran have done in the Iran-Iraq war without the F-14 ? The F-14s shot down 150 Iraqi jets with 3 lost. Without the F-14 Iran might not have been able to expel the Iraqis in 2 years time.
The question is, can Iran build a 4th generation fighter jet up to modern standards ? Something on par with SU-35 ? or Rafale ? or a new F-16 ? I don't think so. Honestly Iran has been trying for decades and you can see for yourself the best that they've come up with. A modernized F-5 and a few prototypes that went absolutely nowhere.
Pakistan just purchased J-10s from China. If they could build a solid 4th gen fighter then why bother with the J-10 ? The JF-17 is pretty much Chinese with their stamp on it. China offered the JF-17 to Iran in exchange for oil but Iran decided that it wasn't good enough.
Same with Turkey. they recently asked the US for dozens of F-16s and 80 modernization kits. If they can't even modernize F-16s by themselves or reverse engineer it or build something similar, then how on earth are they going to now build a 5th generation fighter jet with Pakistan ? I mean I'm sure they can come up with something, but will it be up to the standards of the F-35, F-22, J-20, SU-57 ? I highly doubt it.
Even China just recently installed their own jet engines onto their J-20 and other fighter jets and there are still many questions as to how effective they truly are. There are some doubts as to whether they can perform as well as their Russian counterparts.
And that's China after almost half a century of trying and in the last 2 decades they have poured hundreds of billions into building aircrafts.
On the other hand look at India, with their massive budget and countless brilliant engineers. The best they can do is the Tejas, which is not as good as the F-16, Rafale or SU-35.
I honestly hope Iran purchases the SU-35, SU-30 or even J-10, especially with technology transfers or if Iran can build them under license, that would be great. Such an injection of hardware and technology will actually help Iran to build its own fighter jets.
As another example, look at Iran's extremely limited drone industry before Iran captured several US drones. All the American UAVs which Iran captured, is what really kickstarted Iran's UAV industry and gave Iran the necessary boost to get to where it is today.
The Trend with the 3 military giants of our planet (US, Russia,China) is that as the technology has become so complicated they all will adopt some kind of CAATSA legislation to get a "captive" market for their products.. Yes China will do it and Russia will do it..If you buy these high priced, high tech military items from any one of them you will become their bitch...they will punish you if you want to diversify...ask Turkey, and Egypt..they did not know once they bought from the US and now they are not allowed to buy from any one else .
Iran should stay away from purchase of any "Turn Key" military item from any one of them no matter if they are friendly to Iran...Buy SU-35 or J-10 and you will be in their fishing net..
