A new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is pressing the United States, its allies, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate claims that Iran deployed chemical weapons against its own citizens.
The report lands at a moment when the Trump administration has increased its military posture in the Persian Gulf, and indirect talks between Washington and Tehran continue through Omani mediators in Geneva.
Andrea Stricker, deputy director of FDD's nonproliferation program and author of the report, told Fox News Digital:
"The United States, its allies and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should investigate credible claims that Iran's regime used chemical weapons against its own people."
According to Fox News, the allegations center on an unprecedented uprising that began in December 2025, during which the Iranian regime may have resorted to chemical weapons to suppress dissent. If confirmed, such use would place Tehran in direct violation of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty Iran signed and is bound by.
That Iran would gas its own people to cling to power should surprise no one who has watched the regime operate since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
A program decades in the making
According to the U.S. Intelligence Community, Iran began developing its chemical weapons program in 1983 during its war with Iraq, in response to chemical attacks from the regime of Saddam Hussein. What started as a wartime defensive measure never stopped. It evolved, adapted, and went underground.
Israel's deputy ambassador to the Netherlands, Yaron Wax, laid out the scope before a special meeting of the OPCW in July 2025. He said that "over the past two decades Iran has been developing a chemical weapons program based on weaponized pharmaceutical agents." The distinction matters. Pharmaceutical-based agents blur the line between civilian research and weapons development, making detection and accountability far more difficult.
Israel believes those agents were transferred to Syria's longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad. The Shahid Meisami Research Complex, linked to that program, was destroyed by Israel in June 2025.
As recently as 2024, the U.S. has repeatedly found Iran in noncompliance with its obligations under the CWC. This is not a historical concern. It is an active one.
Tehran's response: deny everything, blame Israel
The Iranian mission to the United Nations posted on X in November 2024:
"A victim of Western-donated chemical weapons employed by the Saddam regime, Iran stands as a responsible member of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Over the past several decades, not a single instance of Iranian violation has been recorded. The current unfounded reports are merely an outgrowth of psychological warfare propagated by the Zionist regime in the wake of its recent defeat on the Lebanese front."
Note the architecture of that denial. Iran suffered under chemical weapons decades ago; it cannot possibly be developing them now. That is not logic. It is deflection dressed up as moral authority. The fact that the U.S. government has repeatedly found Iran in noncompliance makes the "not a single instance" claim particularly brazen.
A regime that has spent four decades funding proxy wars, pursuing nuclear breakout capability, and crushing internal dissent with lethal force does not get the benefit of the doubt on weapons conventions.
Diplomacy and deterrence
The chemical weapons question does not exist in isolation. It sits alongside Iran's nuclear ambitions, its ballistic missile program, and its network of regional proxies. All of it is happening while the Trump administration navigates a dual-track approach of military readiness and diplomatic engagement.
The U.S. has increased its military presence in the Persian Gulf, sending the USS Gerald R. Ford to join dozens of other warships in the region. Simultaneously, indirect talks with Iranian officials, mediated by Oman, have been taking place in Geneva.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi posted on X on Tuesday:
"Iran will resume talks with the U.S. in Geneva with a determination to achieve a fair and equitable deal—in the shortest possible time."
Araghchi also claimed that Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons "under any circumstances" while emphasizing that Tehran will not forgo its right to peaceful nuclear technology. He said, "A deal is within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority."
This is the rhythm Iran has perfected over decades: talk about diplomacy while accelerating the programs that make diplomacy necessary. The regime wants sanctions relief and the removal of military pressure. What it offers in return is always conditional, always reversible, and always accompanied by the implicit threat that things could get worse.
Strength at the negotiating table comes from credible alternatives to negotiation. The warships in the Gulf are not an obstacle to a deal. They are the reason Tehran is willing to discuss one.
What the FDD recommends
Stricker's report does not stop at calling for an investigation. It goes further, arguing that if Washington launches strikes against Iran, chemical weapons infrastructure should be on the target list:
"If Washington launches strikes against Iran, it should give serious consideration to targeting the regime's chemical weapons research and production facilities. Such action would help halt further development and potential use of these weapons while sending a clear message that the regime cannot commit atrocities with impunity."
The broader strategic assessment is equally direct:
"The only solution to Iran's persistent WMD threat is for the United States and Israel to undermine the regime's grip on power. Until then, the two nations will periodically be forced to play whack-a-mole with Tehran's capabilities whenever they endanger regional peace."
This framing cuts through the usual foreign policy fog. Iran's weapons of mass destruction problem is not a series of isolated incidents to be managed one at a time. It is a feature of the regime itself. The nuclear program, the chemical weapons program, the missile program: they share a common root, which is a government that sees its own survival as justification for any capability it can develop.
The uprising changes the calculus
The December 2025 uprising adds a dimension that makes the chemical weapons question urgent in a way it was not before. When a regime is accused of using banned weapons against foreign enemies or proxy battlefields, the international community moves slowly, if it moves at all. When the victims are the regime's own citizens, the moral clarity sharpens.
Iran's people have been rising against their government at enormous personal risk. If Tehran responded to that courage with chemical agents, then the Chemical Weapons Convention would not merely be violated. It is being mocked.
The OPCW exists for exactly this kind of moment. Whether it will act with the urgency the situation demands is another question entirely. International bodies have a long history of producing reports while regimes produce weapons.
The facts are accumulating. The denials are getting louder. And the people of Iran, who have suffered the most under this regime, are the ones who cannot afford to wait for the world to catch up.
