Iran’s nuclear program was initiated by the Shah in the 1950s with American help under the Atoms for Peace Program. The program was terminated after the Islamic revolution in 1979, but was revived under Khomeini and gathered steam following the eight-year war with Iraq. Iran at present has an elaborate nuclear infrastructure, including uranium mining, milling, conversion, and enrichment capabilities that could potentially be diverted towards weaponization activities. Since 2005, the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz have been used to enrich UF6 to levels reaching 4.8% U-235. Iran pursues enrichment in defiance of several United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and as a result, has been the target of sanctions by the international community. In 2006, the P5+1 states (China, France, Russia, U.K., U.S., and Germany) offered Iran an incentives package that included assistance in light water reactor (LWR) construction, a guaranteed nuclear fuel supply, and economic benefits, in exchange for a suspension of Iran’s enrichment activities and implementation of an Additional Protocol. This offer, albeit slightly altered, was renewed in June 2008, but has since met with Tehran’s refusal. While repeatedly stressing that it does not want to develop nuclear weapons, Iran maintains that as a member of the NPT, it has an inalienable right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy applications which includes having access to the nuclear fuel cycle. Critical parts of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure include a Russian supplied light water power reactor at Bushehr, a uranium conversion facility at Esfahan, an enrichment facility at Natanz, a heavy water production plant, and a heavy water research reactor at Arak (currently under construction).
See Iran Nuclear Weapons Profile
There is very little publicly available information to determine whether Iran is pursuing a biological weapons program. Although Iran acceded to the Geneva Protocol in 1929 and ratified the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1973, the U.S. government believes Iran began biological weapon efforts in the early to mid-1980s, and that it continues to pursue an offensive biological weapons program linked to its civilian biotechnology activities. The United States alleges that Iran may have started to develop small quantities of agent, possibly including mycotoxins, ricin, and the smallpox virus. Iran strongly denies acquiring or producing biological weapons.
See Iran Biological Weapons Profile
Iran suffered severe losses from the use of Iraqi chemical weapons over the period from 1982 to 1988. As a consequence, Iran has a great deal of experience in the effects of chemical warfare (CW). Iran has continued to maintain a significant defensive CW capability since the end of the Gulf War in 1988. The most important incentive for this effort was probably the concern that Iraq continued to possess chemical weapons. Iran ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in November 1997 and has been an active participant in the work of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Iran has publicly acknowledged the existence of a chemical weapons program developed during the latter stages of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. On ratifying the CWC, Iran opened its facilities to international inspection and claimed that all offensive CW activities had been terminated and the facilities destroyed prior to the treaty’s entering into force.
Nevertheless, through the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the United States continued to claim that Iran maintained an active program for the development and production of chemical weapons. This program was alleged to include the production of significant quantities of sarin, mustard, phosgene, and hydrogen cyanide. In 2000, the U.S. government was sufficiently confident of its intelligence to publicly claim that Iran could produce as much as 1,000 metric tons of agent per year and had a stockpile of at least several thousand metric tons of weaponized and bulk agent. Open-sources did not provide unambiguous support to these accusations and since 2003 the U.S. intelligence community has substantially downgraded its public assessments of Iranian chemical warfare capabilities. As of 2008, the U.S. government only accuses Iran of having “a large and growing commercial chemical industry that could be used to support a chemical agent mobilization capability.” Iran has always strongly denied producing or possessing chemical weapons in violation of treaty obligations.
Iran is committed to the development of its civilian and military industries and this has involved an ongoing process of modernization and expansion in the chemical industry aimed at reducing dependence on foreign suppliers of materials and technology. An additional goal is expansion of Iran’s range of exports by adding value to basic commodities such as crude oil and natural gas. Due to U.S. claims of ongoing chemical weapons production, Iran has encountered regular difficulties with chemical industry related imports that are restricted by members of the Australia Group. Despite these constraints, the Iranian chemical industry has significantly expanded its capabilities by drawing on the capabilities of new trading partners such as India.
See Iran Chemical Weapons Profile
Iran possesses one of the largest missile inventories in the Middle East and over the years has acquired and developed an infrastructure to build missiles indigenously. It has purchased North Korean Scud-Bs, Scud-Cs, and No-dong ballistic missiles, and has also received active assistance from Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Besides having the capability to mass produce several short-range artillery rockets, Iran also produces indigenously, the Scud-B and the Scud-C variants, Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 respectively. Iran also recently flight-tested the 1,300 km-range Shahab-3, a single-stage liquid-fueled ballistic missile based on the North Korean No-dong. The Shahab-3 is capable of reaching Israel and has been inducted into service with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Iran remains committed to an aggressive missile development effort that includes developing longer range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and a space launch capability. Iran is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime.
