Air defence SAMS can only do so much. Iran needs to start rebuilding its airforce. Russia/China would be more than willing to sell Iran fighter jets. I read years ago Iran was going to buy 200 Su-30s but eventually backed off.
During the 60s-70s the SHAH was on track to make IIAF one of the worlds largest and strongest air forces. They had over 200+ F-4, F-5 and placed an order for 150+F-14s. The Shah was also interested in the F-16 and was going to order 300+ of their own variants before he was overthrown.
I remember back in 2005 IIAF was much better equipped compared to the PAF. They had a fleet of close to 60 BVR capable F-14s, 30 Mig-29's, 15 Mirage F1s while PAF had none (42 F-16s back then were not BVR and only basic non-mlu A/B variants). Today apparently most of these jets have been balkanized and IIAF prob has less than half operational. In the same time period PAF went from no BVR capable fighters to having over 220+ BVR capable F-16s/JF-17s with AIM-120C and SD-10B and large force of AWACS (12) relative to the size of the PAF.
IIAF with a fleet of JF-17s/J-10s would be a deadly threat.