You grab a cup of coffee and turn on the morning news. Just like the rest of the country, the schools in your district are still closed and your kids will continue to be stuck at home. Turning to the stock market, you find out the DOW, S&P 500, and NASDAQ indexes all dropped another fifteen percent yesterday. That brings the total market carnage over the past month to fifty percent. You do the quick math in your head. Your 401k portfolios, the bulk of your retirement savings, are down nearly sixty percent since the outbreak began. Unable to eat, you grab the car keys and head to work. As soon as the garage door opens your boss calls. Your company’s supply chain is in shambles and there will be massive layoffs. You’re one of the unlucky ones slated for downsizing. Your life has been turned upside down by a virus of unknown origin once again.
We might soon have a vaccine or treatment for corona virus, but what if the scenario outlined above emerges from a laboratory of a state actor next time around? Perhaps that state actor is none other than the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). To understand why Tehran might be tempted to take such action, it’s important to grasp three critical factors about the Iranian regime. These factors include its capability, motivation, and desired outcome for such an attack.
Capability
Looking at capability, the clerical leadership in Iran has been pursuing biological weapons for at least the past three decades. In a lengthy article published in December of 1998, the New York Times reported, “Iran is scouring the former Soviet Union to hire scientists who once worked in laboratories tied to Moscow’s vast germ warfare program and has succeeded in recruiting some of them.”[1]
Then, in December of 2003, the Swedish Defense Research Agency published a report that declared, “This study shows Iran has a material resource base that would enable an offensive biological weapons program if deemed politically necessary.”[2] Fast-forward to a 2008 report on the Iranian Biological Weapons Program, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Among the findings are that Iran is a country with, “A relatively advanced base in biotechnology, with all of the equipment necessary to produce wet and dry storable biological weapons.”[3]
Motivation
Having considered capability, let’s turn to motivation. We must keep in mind that IRI is not a classic nation state. In 2006, Henry Kissinger observed, “Iran’s leaders must decide whether they are representing a cause or a nation.”[4] In this regard, Tehran’s answer has been loud and clear over the past five decades. The central objective of the Iranian leadership is exporting its revolution abroad. By so doing, they hope to bolster regimes amenable to Tehran as head of a new caliphate. A complementary objective is enmity towards the United States.[5] The Iranian regime views itself as the leading force for justice around the globe while it portrays the US as the representative of injustice. In this narrative, IRI is duty bound to oppose the US at every turn in order to bring justice to the oppressed. By weakening the US, Tehran hopes to remove the primary obstacle to the export of its revolution.
Desired Outcome
Now let’s consider IRI’s desired outcome in carrying out a corona-style biological attack against the US. Why would they do such a thing? The answer is simple, survival. After three years of crippling economic sanctions and the tearing up of the nuclear deal (JCPOA), Iran’s leaders are not certain they can survive four more years under President Trump. Furthermore, there have been numerous outbreaks of anti- regime protests since January 2017. This brings us back to the current crisis, and the Iranian regime’s obsession with the corona virus.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the special assistant to Iranian Parliamentary speaker on international affairs, sent out a revealing tweet on February 28, 2020, “The corona virus is biological warfare against Washington’s adversaries.”[6] To bolster this line of thinking, the man in charge of Iran’s efforts to combat the corona outbreak, made a similar claim on March 3, 2020. Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization declared, “A review of the effects of this virus strengthens the hypothesis that corona is a biological attack aimed at the economy of Iran and China.” [7] All of these allegations are the byproduct of a certain mindset. It is the belief that biological warfare, if perfected, is an avenue of wreaking havoc on an adversary without resorting to war.
In July 2015, Mehdi Balali Mood and Majid Zare Bidaki published a report with the aim of, “bringing awareness to national decision makers,” in Iran. Their findings include a discussion of the history and use of biological weapons. Bioterrorism and Biological Weapons includes a poignant case study blaming the origins of the Black Death in Europe on the use of plague-infected bodies against the inhabitants of the Crimean city of Kaffa in 1346. The authors conclude, “Biological weapons give the user the opportunity to spread fear and confusion among victims. The aim is to disrupt economic activity, weaken the central government, and prevent a coordinated military response.”[8]
Conclusion
The review of recent news and relevant literature makes clear that IRI’s strategists and leaders have thought long and hard about the utility of biological weapons. Without a doubt, they have developed the capacity to produce these weapons for some time. Their desire to export their revolution and oppose the US serves as their motivation. The present corona outbreak has shown Iran’s leaders the disruptive effects of biological weapons on an adversary. Would Tehran hesitate to use such weapons against a country strangling its economy? If the end of the regime was imminent, perhaps not.
[1]The New York Times; The Germ Warriors,December 08 1998
[2]Swedish Defense Research Agency; Iran’s Disarmament and Arms Control Policies for Biological and Chemical Weapons, and Biological Capabilities; December 2003
[3]Center for Strategic & International Studies; Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction Biological Weapons Programs; October 28 2008
[4]The Washington Post; The Next Steps with Iran; July 31 2006
[5]Research Journal on Islamic Revolution Vol 2, No 5; The Islamic Revolution and a New Geopolitical Strategy for Iran; Winter 2013 (www.sid.ir/Fa/Journal/JournalListpaper.aspx?ID=44313)
[6]International Quran News Agency, The Hidden Story of America’s Corona Biological Weapon; February 29 2020 (iqna.ir/fa/news/3882134)
[7]Khabar Online; Reaction of Iran’s Passive Defense Director to the possibility that Corona is a Biological weapon; March 03 2020 (www.khabaronline.ir/news/1360033)
[8]Birjand University of Medical Sciences; Bioterrorism and Biological Weapons; From Past to Present; August 2015 (journal.bums.ac.ir/article-1-1911-fa.pdf)