To build a serious fighter program while under sanctions and a shrinking economy was clearly not a wise decision during the thought processes of the establishment.
I believe and its my own personal assumption that leadership lost interest in IRIAF stems partly from antics pulled by the force itself in the 2000s and aviation organizations. The strategy of relying upon Missiles, UCAVs, and IADs is there and its a factor but not entirely. SL was invited to Saegheh-I 3-7600 first flight when it was presented as "F/A-18 equivalent". Did they tell him it was only some % rebuilt airframe and had no radar, fire control system? it did not even have a navigation suite so had to be flown with a chase plane. Before that was Azarakhsh which was ... "the first Iranian fighter jet" a HESA+CATIC (Chinese) rebuilt F-5E which was given the avionics of a J-7E. Then F-313. I remember a few Mirage F1s were moderately overhauled and given new paint jobs and the project head was claiming how he "broke the American back" by doing that. When you pull antics like this in front of people who are already standing on a thin ice, threatened by lobby groups, you lose credibility and even your real projects will be seen as meaningless gimmicks. How many people here understand or even know that Iran since 2018 has a 4.0 generation avionics, nav-coom, FBW suite? thats an achievement but that is all lost in the background because of past record of PR stunts.
All the while leadership saw IRGC going from Shahab-II to firing Glide vehicles with MaRVs on them at MRBM ranges. Them launching tri-staged SLVs from TEL, Bavar-373 tracking targets at 450 km and Sayyad's pulling 30 G's at 6 mach with their TVC. Who will they fund ?
Until we see finances of Iran improve, we will likely not see anything other than UCAVs.
Defence budget is not small. it is higher than even those countries that purchase weapons from outside. IRIAF portion in it is small.
The people who use so called intuition to guess the state of the IRIAF think you can make a fighter program with 10$ and a can of fanta orange. Takes billions actually.
Alright lets say out of the 24 Bln USD budget, if they just giving IRIAF some 1.7 Blillion USD. Following thing will happen:
1) 500 million for F-14AM Program. Yearly 10 x F-14A can be restored => upgraded to F-14AM standard which means the Airframe is thoroughly rebuilt, AWG-9 digitalized to provide its legendary 350+ km search range, new INS/TACAN, Fakour-90 LR-BVR. IRIAF possesses 60 airframes which can provide a solid force of ~45-48 long-range BVR attack capable interceptors that can beat the shit out of 75 % of the PGCC intruders over their own airspace. According to BT, OWJ already has mastered building an entire TF-30-P414 and airframe (partial building?) and is just waiting for $. The plane is also supposed to get a Meteor equivalent ARH BVR missile Maghsoud and an AIM-9X equivalent CCD guided missile.
2) 800 Million for Kowsar-I Program for a force of 65 Fighters @ 10 Million USD/Unit fighter and their Armaments as well. Radar, TDL, Nav-Comm, E-Warfare, FBW ... it is the most modern electronic system we have in the sky of Iran.
3) 500 Million for 23 x MIG-29 9.12 obsolete dying fleet gets upgraded with Zhuk M radars, E-warfare suites, R-77-1, R-74
Advantages
This force can provide 140 x 4.0 generation fighters all having modern avionics and weapons package. These can guard PG theatre and NW. The surface fleet will have air cover, helping IADS to the point that it won't get stretched and be attacked by SOWs of enemies. With growing time the enemy aircrafts will have lower RCS and longer range SOWs. They won't even need to enter Iranian airspace or even get near to it. They will just launch their EF-2000 and Rafales to fire supersonic SOWs at Iranian IADS. These fighters with their <1 m2 RCS won't be picked by GWACS search radars easily.
Only IRIAF can threaten this enemy in sky which it currently can't.
Why is it not happening?
Different theories among critics:
-No $ for IRIAF. heavy % of the budget is for Missile forces, IADS, UCAVs, Navy
-Lobbys within and at periphery of IRIAF fight with each other and MoD is losing interest in funding them.
-History of meaningless projects that added nothing of value to IRIAF (F-7N, MirageF1, Multiple Saeghe testbeds)
-Nojeh fearing people are still alive and in power. May be more scared after Turkish AF actions during coup.