[dsfyu404ed]

>Part of the reason the US only got to fire it 3 times was probably just how effective it was in Iranian hands

Not to mention that the Navy generally preferred not to fly the tomcat if there was anything else that was available to do the job (for good reasons) so that greatly limited the AIM-54's exposure to potential targets. It's a good missile but it's fundamentally old technology and fielding it is resource intensive compared to newer tech. It's also heavy, no reason to strap that thing to your plane unless you expect to need to blow a bomber out of the sky or you're gonna be going up against someone with similar long range capability.

The Iranians made heavy use of it because they had no better options and they clearly like it enough that they built a clone (probably modernized with digital electronics and a more modern warhead) to replace it.