Not much is publicly available about Iran’s biological capabilities, but it has the biotechnology and missile wherewithal
At least for the public, the focus of the Israeli-Iran war has been virtually entirely on the dangers of Iran having and using a nuclear bomb, with Israel’s efforts directed at preventing that from happening. More recent developments suggest that Israel has widened its objectives, to do such extensive damage that the current Iranian regime will sue for peace.
Further, apparently it has considered assassinating Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei — the country’s ultimate authority, head of state, and commander-in-chief, who is staunchly supported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the most powerful and ideologically driven entity in the country, unwaveringly committed to the Islamic revolution.
Iran’s History With the Biological Weapons Convention
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a multilateral treaty that effectively prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, and use of biological weapons.
In 1973 Iran signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which it did under the Shah, whose regime ended in 1979. Despite Iran being a party to the BWC, there have been concerns raised about its compliance with its provisions, particularly regarding the potential for offensive biological weapons development.
What is known is that Iran has the biotechnology infrastructure, which can be used for dual-use technology purposes, e.g., military purposes, as noted in the U.S. State Department reports on the compliance with weapons of mass destruction-related treaties.
Can Iran Actually Use Biological Weapons Effectively?
Any weapon of mass destruction requires the wherewithal to reach beyond the borders of the conflict party. Iran has the missile capability capable of reaching Israel, and as has been the case, despite extensive defense technologies in place, missiles have penetrated Israel’s defense systems.
What is known is that in other conflict situations, missiles have been used to deliver biological weapons in concert with other delivery systems, such as rockets, or dropped from bombers.
However, there are complex technical obstacles in doing so, including the following:
- missiles require attention at optimizing payload size and the means of dispersing the agent;
- biological agents can lose their effectiveness during storage and in the interim before use;
- factors like wind velocity, humidity, and sunlight can significantly impact the effectiveness of aerosol dissemination;
- and the complexity of biological agents makes them harder to control compared to chemical or nuclear weapons, or to predict their effectiveness.
What We Don’t Know and Why it Matters
What is not shared with the public, and properly so, is what governments know about the extent to which Iran has been developing, producing, and designing biological agent delivery systems. If such intelligence does not exist, then even those who should know cannot gauge the extent of such an Iranian threat.
Kathleen C. Bailey, in her 1998 book titled “The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime,” has a chapter on “Chemical, Biological, and Missile Proliferation” and puts it this way:
“The proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, together with the capability to deliver them with cruise or ballistic missiles, is increasing at a much more dramatic rate than is nuclear proliferation. Compared with nuclear weapons, chemical and biological agents are technologically easier to develop, significantly less expensive, and the facilities and products are easier to hide. From a military use standpoint, chemical and biological weapons also have advantages — they can kill large numbers of people, but without the collateral damage of nuclear weapons.”
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Final Questions
What therefore remains are two questions: 1) Has Iran secretly been developing and producing biological weapons? And 2) If the Khamenei regime is threatened to such an extreme extent, will desperation result in their using biological agents?
We must hope we never get to this point, because, once done, it likely will prove not to be the last.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: Freepik.
