Who's stupid idea? The US! And it wasn't stupid. When they sold the F-14s Iran was US friendly country who was in a need of such a plane. They also had orders on F-16, but non of them reached Iran before 1979 when the goverment changed.
And if I remember it right, then F-14s servered Iran very well in Iran-Iraq war in 1980s.
Now they have bunch of knock-off weapons in service, which is quite cheap for them and also they produce the weapondry themselfs now so in no way are they stupid. It's stupid to call them stupid.