The Conscription Office did not explain on what basis that term length was determined.
Under the law, the maximum length of draft duty is 24 months. The military can shorten the term, however, and sets a new figure each year after Now Ruz. Duty terms have varied from 18 months to 24 months.
US military manpower specialists consider such a short tour of duty too little to produce a skilled military. A key reason the US military opted for an all-volunteer force in 1970 was that the 24-month draft tour was considered inadequate for a hi-tech military. The standard tour in the US armed forces is four years.
A former congressional aide who worked on the all-volunteer system told the Iran Times, “With a 24-month term, you are running little more than a giant school because so many skills require 14, 16, 18 months of training. The United States switched to four-year volunteers so that troops would spend two-thirds of their time on duty assignments rather than just one-third.”