Key Points and Summary: Despite being a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, there are significant concerns that Iran maintains a clandestine chemical weapons (CW) program.
-Having suffered greatly from Iraqi chemical attacks in the 1980s, Iran developed its own retaliatory CW capabilities during that war and is believed to have produced several hundred tons of agents.
-The US has officially accused Iran of non-compliance with the treaty, and US intelligence agencies have warned that Tehran is actively researching weaponized pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs) that attack the central nervous system.
-These concerns add another dangerous dimension to the ongoing conflict with Israel.
Does Iran Have Chemical Weapons, And Would They Use Them?
The use of chemical weapons (CW) is a sensitive issue for Iran, which suffered from Iraq’s widespread use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. Many Iranians continue to suffer from the chemical attacks from Iraq.
While Iran registered over 50,000 victims of Iraqi chemical attacks requiring medical care, an estimated one million Iranians were estimated to have been exposed to nerve agents or mustard gas throughout the war.
Iraq attacked Iran at least 300 times with chemical weapons during the war; later, Iran responded in kind. But does Iran maintain its CW stockpile, and would they use it against anyone else, knowing how their own people suffered from them?
Iran And Chemical Weapons
Iran has a history of such weapons due to its experience with Iraqi chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq War.
Iran has signed treaties prohibiting the development, production, and stockpiling of chemical weapons, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Despite this, the ongoing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, which has expanded beyond the limits of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with some uranium enrichment nearing weapons-grade purity, have resulted in the current air strikes by Israel across Iran.
Iran is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. However, during airstrikes by Israel in October 2024, chemical weapons sites, missiles, air defenses, and other military targets were struck in Syria, which was close to Iran before Assad’s overthrow. Was Syria’s CW strictly indigenous, or did Tehran help in that aspect?
In 2021, the US accused Iran of not complying with the CWC for an “incomplete stockpile and facilities declaration and alleged concern that it (Iran) may be pursuing pharmaceutical-based agents for military purposes.”
“Iran would do whatever it takes to secure its national interests,” said a former George W. Bush Senior Department of Defense official.
“While I can’t say that there is 100 percent certainty Iran has chemical weapons, I would not be shocked if they wanted them or had an active program to build them. They know they can’t compete with the US in any sort of conventional war, so they need to develop things like nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and maybe even chemical weapons.”
Would Iran Use NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) Weapons?
Iran is thought to have a chemical weapons stockpile. We know that they used them against Iraq in retaliation for hundreds of Iraqi CW attacks on Iranian troops and civilians.
Iran produced its first chemical agent in 1984. Still, cumulative production is “a minimum of several hundred tons of blister, blood, and choking agents.”
Some sources have claimed that the Iranians might have as much as 2,000 tons of chemical agent—though the Janes report was published in 1995—possibly including a nerve agent.
According to the DoD, Iran “is conducting research on toxins and organisms with biological warfare applications.” According to the ACDA, “Iran probably has produced biological warfare agents and has weaponized a small quantity of those agents.”
Iran has produced fentanyl-based or other types of weaponized Pharmaceutical-based Agents (PBAs), which attack the central nervous system, and provided these to proxy groups that may have already used them in several cases in Iraq and Syria.
The State Department cited Lab Dookhtegan’s social media post dated September 23, 2023, showing allegedly confidential documents “detailing an Iranian military university’s development of grenades meant to disseminate medetomidine, an anesthetic that is a central nervous system-acting chemical.”
According to these leaked documents, in which the US government has sufficient confidence to cite them in an official government report, “this development included information on the production and testing of prototype weapons” to disseminate these nerve agents.
In its annual 2024 threat assessment, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) warned that “Iranian military scientists have researched chemicals, toxins, and bioregulators, all of which have a wide range of sedation, dissociation, and amnestic incapacitating effects.”
The DNI added that Iranian research was likely to continue and for offensive purposes. If the regime appears to be falling, and it does, they could unleash these weapons against US bases in the region.
That is a very real threat.
About the Author
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
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