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Abstract

Efforts to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons could provoke dangerous reactions, including the country’s pursuit of other unconventional weapons systems. Owing to its highly developed pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, Iran has the technical capabilities for one such system—biological weaponry—within its grasp. It is unclear whether Tehran has already begun a biological weapons program, but the Iranian threat is grave enough to warrant serious consideration of a rigorous biological nonproliferation strategy that could be implemented in parallel with nuclear nonproliferation efforts. That strategy should be tailored specifically to Iran and focused on three sets of factors: those that facilitate proliferation, those that motivate proliferation, and those that shape the parameters according to which proliferation occurs.

Keywords

biodefense biological terrorism biological weapons Biological Weapons Convention biopreparedness Iran nonproliferation

The United States and many of its allies consider a nuclear-armed Iran an intolerable threat to stability in a volatile region and to security around the world. Failure to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, they argue, could have a range of negative consequences, including sparking a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and threatening the existence of Israel. Yet in their struggle to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United States, its allies, and like-minded members of the international community should not focus only on the dire consequences of failure in this mission. They should also consider the implications of success. Smothering Iran’s prized nuclear program could well provoke dangerous reactions, including, perhaps, Iran’s pursuit of other types of unconventional weapons systems.

In one possible scenario, an Iran deprived of nuclear weapons is driven to develop a capability already within its technical grasp: biological weaponry. Whether manifested as the initiation of a new biological warfare program or the intensification of an existing (but so far unconfirmed) biological weapons effort, the Iranian threat is grave enough to warrant serious consideration of a rigorous biological nonproliferation strategy that could be implemented in parallel with nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Over the past couple of decades, the international community has engaged in a broad range of interconnected biological-threat-prevention activities sometimes characterized as a “web of prevention” (Feakes et al., 2007). Useful as it may be in some regards, this unified, global approach may not include the tailored strategies needed to deal with particularly serious proliferation threats, such as Iran.

To devise an effective nonproliferation strategy focused on one country, it is useful to assess the specific factors that influence the proliferation calculus of the country in question. Such a tailored approach requires the unpacking and analyzing of the intricacies of proliferation with regard to three distinct sets of factors: facilitators, motivators, and shapers (Bansak, 2011a). Each set plays a unique role in proliferation, and each must be managed through different means if Iran is to reach the conclusion that its security cannot be enhanced by the acquisition of a biological warfare arsenal.

Biological weapons and Iran

Internationally, the threat of biological weapons has been both over-hyped and underemphasized. On the one hand, risk-perception biases have caused biological weapons to be treated as a “dreaded risk” that evokes unique horror; as a result, the true threat posed by such weapons is often overestimated (Stern, 2003). Since the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, this tendency has been pervasive in the United States, particularly with regard to bioterrorism. At the same time, the intensified focus on bioterrorism has led to decreased attention on the ever-present danger of state-level biological weapons programs (Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, 2008)—even though state programs have access to far greater resources and, therefore, pose a threat of far higher magnitude than bioterrorism.

Another dimension of the debate involves the relative risks of biological and nuclear weapons (Macfarlane, 2005). Some analysts have taken definitive stances, emphasizing or prioritizing one threat rigidly over the other. In reality, however, this question in its raw form includes too many variables and uncertainties to be resolved without excessive use of caveats and conditions.

Regardless of its risk relative to other classes of weaponry, the threat of biological weapons should not be over-dramatized, but it also cannot be ignored (Littlewood, 2010). Despite continuously evolving interpretations of what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), it is widely held that only nuclear weapons and biological weapons (of the sophisticated, strategic variety) exhibit the capacity for true mass destruction.

There are also differences of opinion about the threat posed by individual proliferators of unconventional weapons, including Iran. These differences often relate to assessment of two critical factors: capability and intent. In the case of Iran, popular wisdom holds that the country’s leadership has most likely established an intent to become a nuclear weapons power, at the very least in a “breakout” sense, but its technical capabilities may have not reached the point at which this goal can be achieved. The risk of a biologically armed Iran may exhibit inverse conditions: Iran already possesses the requisite technical capabilities to build at least a limited (and potentially extensive) biological weapons arsenal, but Iran may not have the intent to do so.

Of course, some argue that Iran has already demonstrated biological weapons ambitions. Indeed, Iran was suspected of initiating offensive biological work in the 1980s during the Iran–Iraq War (Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2011a), and media sources in the late 1990s documented efforts by Tehran to recruit former Soviet bioweaponeers (Miller and Broad, 1998). Accounts of an Iranian biological weapons program in the past or present, however, have not been proved. This uncertainty should come as no surprise given the many factors that can shroud external knowledge of foreign biological weapons programs, which can readily be disguised or hidden within a country’s peaceful biological research network—as occurred infamously in the Soviet Union, where, in the early 1990s, it was discovered that behind the Iron Curtain a massive offensive biological weapons enterprise had employed some 65,000 scientists working in dozens of facilities throughout the country (Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2011b).

While Iran’s strategic thinking and intent with regard to biological weapons are difficult to assess from the outside, its technological capabilities are more vulnerable to external assessment and provide important information on Iran’s threat potential.¹ Iran possesses the scientific infrastructure and knowledge base necessary for a biological weapons program. Specifically, Iran’s advanced pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries present what is known as a dual-use risk: The same materials, equipment, and expertise used for the development and production of legitimate biological products can also be employed for illicit weapons activities (US Department of State, 2005). Indeed, with its longstanding ventures in vaccine development and production and its growing expertise in cutting-edge biotechnologies, including genetic engineering, Iran boasts one of the developing world’s most advanced life science industries (Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2011a; Westerdahl et al., 2003).

Beyond these enabling conditions, US government agencies have assessed that Iran also possesses the more specific know-how critical for mature weapons development—namely, the capability to produce and weaponize biological agents, as well as technologies for their delivery. For example, a 2005 report by the US Department of State concluded, “Iran is technically capable of producing at least rudimentary, bulk-fill biological warheads for a variety of delivery systems, including missiles” (US Department of State, 2005: 20). In 2006, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reported to Congress that Iran “probably has the capability to produce large-quantities of some Biological Warfare agents for offensive purposes, if it made the decision to do so” (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2008: 4). The 2009 ODNI report reiterated this concern but omitted the descriptor “large-quantities” from its assessment (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2009: 5).

Even if Iran has not actively pursued biological weapons in recent years, it can reasonably be argued that the country has engaged in “hedging behavior” by conducting advanced dual-use research and developing dual-use infrastructure to bolster breakout capacities in the areas of chemical and biological warfare (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2011). According to a US State Department report (US Department of State, 2005: 21), Iran’s expanding biotechnology industry could “easily hide pilot to industrial-scale production capabilities for a potential [biological weapons] program, and could mask procurement of [biological weapons-]related process equipment.” Also, dual-use activities in Iran have included “conducting research involving [biological weapons]-related pathogens and genetic engineering, and developing mechanisms that could be used to deliver biological agents” (US Department of State, 2010: 16). In 2003, the CIA assessed that Iran’s ability to weaponize biological agents was limited, but as Iran’s dual-use research and technology base continues to advance, so does its ability to perform weapons-relevant processes (Central Intelligence Agency, 2003).

The United States and its allies have expended tremendous amounts of energy trying to compel Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions. In this concerto of efforts, a non-nuclear Iran seems to have become an end worth pursuing in and of itself. The international community should not become complacent, however, and accept this sole objective. Even a non-nuclear Iran presents a WMD threat that could destabilize the region and threaten international security. Accordingly, the international community should engage in tailored biological nonproliferation efforts that ensure an Iranian biological weapons program does not become a reality (if it is not one already) or stop any existing program in its tracks.

Unpacking the dynamics of proliferation

To determine exactly what activities and approaches should be incorporated into a nonproliferation strategy tailored specifically to Iran, it is necessary to identify the disparate issues that might factor into an Iranian decision to acquire a biological arsenal. The process of biological weapons proliferation can be disaggregated into three distinct sets of factors: (1) those that facilitate proliferation; (2) those that motivate proliferation; and (3) those that shape the parameters according to which proliferation occurs (Bansak, 2011a). Such a conceptualization is not merely a theoretical exercise. Identifying and analyzing the factors relevant to Iran’s potential biological weapons calculus may reveal specific nonproliferation targets and methods.

Facilitators

As indicated by the term, facilitating factors do not directly cause proliferation but rather allow or expedite it. The most far-reaching facilitator is the dual-use dilemma (Atlas and Dando, 2006). Because of the dual-use nature of the field, acquiring biological weapons-relevant materials and equipment is often relatively easy and need not require the acquisition of highly controlled military technologies. Beyond the ubiquity of dual-use materials and knowledge are political facilitators, including weaknesses in the international community’s formal nonproliferation regime. In particular, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is plagued by a lack of formal verification measures and an “institutional deficit,” as there is no international organization in charge of monitoring and administering the provisions of the treaty. These weaknesses increase the ease with which member states may contravene the treaty and proliferate (Koblentz, 2009; Sims, 2009).

These facilitators do not turn but rather grease the global wheels of proliferation, and they apply directly to Iran’s threat potential. To begin addressing these issues, national export-control policies with regard to Iran should be re-evaluated. Given the dual-use dilemma described above, the usefulness of biological export controls needs serious re-examination (Turpen, 2009). While some particularly sensitive items should probably remain under strict controls, it is unclear that traditional technology-denial approaches will be effective in preventing the misuse of many dual-use biological materials.

Instead of access controls, political approaches may better address the dual-use dilemma. Article I of the BWC prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and acquisition of biological weapons, which the treaty defines as “[m]icrobial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes” (Biological Weapons Convention, 1972). This intent-based definition, known as the General Purpose Criterion, effectively covers the misuse of any biological material or technology to create biological weapons. A number of approaches could help ensure that Iran observes its BWC obligations.

First, Iran needs to remain convinced of the BWC’s relevance to its own interests. The most effective means of achieving this goal is through greater promotion of the treaty’s Article X, which grants member states the right to technological exchange for civil, non-prohibited purposes. Iran has perennially endorsed Article X as a priority component of the treaty and has insisted that improving implementation of that provision is a precondition for strengthening the treaty in other areas (Sajjadi, 2010).

In the past, some of Iran’s positions on the BWC—such as its demand for the total abolishment of the Australia Group, a multilateral export-control regime whose primarily Western member states have harmonized national export controls related to biological and chemical weapons—have been so extreme that they preclude resolution of the technology-sharing issue. Nonetheless, a concerted effort to identify compromises on Article X is necessary to keep Iran content with the treaty or to deprive Tehran of any excuses for not observing its obligations. In this vein, nonproliferation expert Elizabeth Turpen has proposed a “grand bargain” whereby export controls targeted at developing countries are loosened to reap the more productive nonproliferation benefits of political cohesion (2009).

Another political means of influencing Tehran toward honoring its BWC obligations involves strengthening the treaty itself, specifically in the area of compliance assessment and assurance. Although the state parties are unlikely in the near future to resume negotiations on a legally binding verification protocol, a process that ended controversially in 2001, the United States and its allies should continue exploring other possibilities to institute an enhanced system to demonstrate compliance with the treaty (Littlewood, 2010). The promotion of mutual transparency measures between Iran and its adversaries, particularly the United States, could also take place outside of the BWC framework (Bansak, 2011b).

Addressing the facilitators of biological weapons proliferation can create obstacles to an Iranian biological weapons program. Yet because strides on this front may be undercut by determined efforts to acquire biological weapons, Iran’s intent must be the target of another specialized set of nonproliferation measures.

Motivators

The most obvious and powerful motivation for a country to create a biological weapons program is a belief in the military utility of this class of weaponry. Such beliefs can stem from a variety of analyses. National leaders may appraise the capacity of biological weapons to inflict unique types of harm upon an enemy as having high value. They may also be allured by financial cost-benefit analyses that portray biological agents as particularly inexpensive weapons of mass destruction. In addition, they may consider biological weapons useful for conducting clandestine warfare, given the difficulties involved in attributing their use (Clunan et al., 2008).

In the past, elements of the Iranian leadership have judged biological weapons to be a worthwhile military investment. For example, in October 1988, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an Iranian politician who would become president a year later, declared that “chemical bombs and biological weapons are a poor man’s atomic bombs and can easily be produced. We should at least consider them for our defense … Although the use of such weapons is inhuman, the [Iran–Iraq] War taught us that international laws are only drops of ink on paper” (Hiltermann, 2005).

Another historically significant motivator is the security dilemma (Jervis, 1978): States may seek biological weapons capabilities in pursuit of “retaliation-in-kind” parity when they believe, sometimes mistakenly, that a potential adversary possesses such weapons. For example, the mistaken belief that the United States secretly maintained a biological arsenal after ratifying the BWC in the 1970s provided the Soviet Union a motivation for its modern-era biological weapons program (Alibek and Tucker, 1999). Similarly, Iran initiated its chemical weapons program during the Iran–Iraq War after Iraq had used chemical weapons during that conflict. Tehran also claimed, though probably erroneously, that Iraq employed biological weapons during the war, leading Rafsanjani to declare Iran’s interest in developing a biological deterrent (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2011).

Reducing the motivations for Iranian acquisition of biological weapons requires the use of dissuasion measures aimed at convincing would-be proliferators that biological weapons are neither desirable nor necessary. The first order of business in making biological weapons less desirable to Iran should be efforts to dilute their military utility (or at least Iranian perceptions of their military utility). Effective medical countermeasures and strengthened public health preparedness that reduce vulnerabilities to biological attack may be the best methods of accomplishing this goal (Bennett et al., 2011). Such protective capabilities project a unique preventive effect by denying the intended goals of an attack (Graham and Talent, 2009) in a process formally known as “deterrence by denial” (Snyder, 1961).

There are two additional criteria for effectively using biopreparedness as a means of implementing deterrence. First, this method would need to be employed not only by the United States and its closest allies but also by countries in Iran’s neighborhood. This deterrence package would include bolstered regional disease surveillance capacities and coordinated response strategies that utilize both general public health assets and specialized medical countermeasures against likely threat agents. Because enhancing public health preparedness helps to protect against both biological attacks and naturally occurring infectious diseases, use of resources in this area is a prudent investment that should find broad appeal across nations (Center for Biosecurity of UPMC, 2010). Second, this type of deterrence would also require a strategic communications campaign that broadcasts the robustness of the international community’s shared biodefense and biopreparedness capabilities, demonstrating that the development of a biological arsenal is not worth the trouble (Bennett et al., 2011).

To reduce any Iranian belief that biological weapons could be used clandestinely, the United States and its allies should support enhanced microbial forensics, investigation methods, and intelligence capabilities that can effectively identify the perpetrators of biological attacks and thus enable deterrence by reprisal. This method of deterrence should also be accompanied by strategic communications conveying that biological weapons, even if used covertly, would be met with harsh consequences. If projected early enough, this message would work against the development of biological weapons by forcing a would-be proliferator to “consider the trade-offs between benefits and costs well into the future” (Bennett et al., 2011: 8).

To counter the possibility of Iranian interest in biological weapons as an in-kind deterrent, the international community must promote multilateral transparency, particularly with regard to biodefense activities, in order to strengthen mutual confidence in the non-possession of biological weapons (Bansak, 2011b). Mutual transparency would not only help to diminish Iranian incentives to acquire biological weapons but would also, as indicated earlier, serve to actually enhance Iran’s accountability with regard to BWC compliance. However, achieving this kind of transparency will not be easy, particularly with regard to Israel, which embraces opacity for its unconventional weapons efforts and is also suspected by some of harboring a biological weapons program.

As with proliferation facilitators, addressing the motivators for biological weapons acquisition may not completely eliminate the risk of an Iranian program, particularly if Tehran believes that biological warfare offers a strong offensive advantage. In addition, the landscape of proliferation will change over time in concert with biotechnological developments. Still, facilitators and motivators jointly influence the decision to develop and acquire biological weapons. Addressing these two sets of factors together—increasing the costs and decreasing the benefits of a biological weapons program—would be more effective than pursuing either separately.

Shapers

Not fully separate from facilitators and motivators, shapers add complexity to them by altering the parameters of the proliferation potential of biological weapons. Regrettably, shapers generally threaten to remove barriers and increase incentives for the acquisition of weapons capabilities.

Most notable in this class of proliferation factors are ongoing advances in the life sciences and biotechnology. This “new biology” is expanding technical frontiers in microbiological and molecular manipulation, delivery technologies, and the understanding of human immunological vulnerabilities (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2006). For example, progress in the field of DNA synthesis has made possible the de novo construction of entire pathogenic genomes, theoretically enabling proliferators to bypass physical controls on dangerous pathogens. Other advances, such as emerging technologies like DNA shuffling and the increasing convergence of the biological and chemical sciences, are poised to offer novel biological and biochemical materials with hypothetical applications in a new generation of weapons (Knobler et al., 2002; Tucker, 2010).

Another shaper is the evolving nature of warfare, which in recent years has emphasized asymmetric conflict, stabilization operations, and other types of irregular military campaigns. New conflict scenarios could theoretically create and legitimize a new niche for a next generation of biochemical weapons, such as nonlethal weapons used for peacekeeping purposes (Wheelis, 2004). An exploitation of the biotechnological revolution for novel military applications could dramatically affect assessments of the utility of biological weapons. Indeed, some experts believe that Iran has already shown interest in pursuing new biochemical agents for offensive purposes (Bennett et al., 2011).

To deal effectively with life-science and biotech advances, the United States and its allies need to support efforts to monitor those advances. Governments and independent experts have recommended that the implications of scientific and technological advances be monitored more closely within the context of the BWC (Dando, 2010). Even beyond understanding the general implications of these advances, however, the United States and its allies should target intelligence and analysis efforts at determining the extent to which such advances have diffused into Iran.

Dual-use education and norm-building within the science and industry communities could also help deter Iran and other potential proliferators from using scientific advances in biological weapons programs by encouraging individual scientists and scientific organizations to prevent their research and products from being misused for hostile purposes (Rappert, 2010). Weapons programs, while often conceptualized as monolithic wholes, are in reality composed of individual people with personal interests and ethical codes. Accordingly, soft-power projection and strategic appeals to Iran’s scientific community could help to establish important norms against biotechnological misconduct, serving to deprive Tehran of scientists willing to drive a program forward.

Conclusions

Nonproliferation and Middle East expert Avner Cohen has explained that one of the difficulties in assessing the possibilities of biological armament in the Middle East is understanding the “linkages that strategically and politically tie [biological weapons] to the two other categories on the WMD spectrum, chemical and nuclear weapons” (Cohen, 2002). It has been argued that the “state-security motive for biological armament is strong” in the Middle East, a region that has seen chemical weapons fail to serve as a reliable deterrent against nuclear-armed adversaries and where nuclear armament “is technologically and economically unfeasible for most” (Drake, 2002: 151).

In addition to Iran, major regional powers Iraq, Israel, Egypt, and Syria have all been suspected of harboring offensive biological weapons programs in the recent past or the present. Moreover, the latter three countries—Israel, Egypt, and Syria—are not party to the Biological Weapons Convention. Such an environment could be expected to encourage Iranian interest in a biological deterrent, especially if nuclear weapons are made unattainable.

Addressing the potential development of an Iranian program is perhaps best done within the context of an approach or agreement that applies to the entire region (Drake, 2002). The complex geopolitics of the Middle East, however, has made achieving regional agreement a grueling task, particularly when dealing with military and defense-related issues. Indeed, it is unlikely that an arrangement on biological weapons or unconventional weapons as a whole—both of which would unavoidably involve irreconcilable demands for the dismantlement of Israel’s nuclear arsenal—can be achieved in the near-term. Unfortunately, a realistic timeframe for achieving this regional goal does not mesh with the urgency of the potential Iranian biological threat. Active biological weapons nonproliferation efforts targeted specifically at Iran should be cultivated immediately, before a true Iranian program can manifest itself, assuming one has not already begun.

A targeted, tailored strategy could also eventually serve as a springboard and model for addressing regional nonproliferation and disarmament challenges, at least within the limited context of biological weapons. Many of the recommended activities and measures would not only mitigate the risk of Iranian acquisition of biological weapons but would also decrease the risk of proliferation regionally, and around the world.

Footnotes

1

American, British, and German government agencies have expressed concerns over Iranian biological activities. Because of the many barriers to confirming the existence of biological weapons programs, reports tend to include cautious language that obscures precision (Robinson, 2005), often being “confounded by the inclusion of caveats such as ‘suspected’, ‘developing,’ or ‘capable of’” (Leitenberg, 2000). Although such accounts may not be perfectly suited to forming clear assessments of current threats, they are useful for another important task: understanding the threat the country is technically capable of posing in the future.

Author biography

Kirk C. Bansak is a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, USA. Formerly, he was a research associate in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).

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