The Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies hosted Abdolrasool Divsallar, a Senior Researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and an Adjunct Professor at the Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, on 10 March 2025. The speaker gave a lecture titled “The Future of WMD Proliferation and Disarmament in the Middle East”, in which he discussed the persistent threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), especially with regional deterrence failures in conventional warfare and political shifts.

Divsallar emphasized at the start of his lecture that while questions may arise around the relevance of WMD’s threat in today’s world, the risk is very much real, albeit with a lower probability of deployment but with detrimental consequences if used. The existence of WMD is indeed a reoccurring issue in the background of many conflicts and one of the main concerns regarding this is nuclear proliferation.

Israel, widely believed to have nuclear weapons in its possession, has not signed or ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), maintaining an ambiguous nuclear policy. “One of the grave moments in the past was 1973 Arab-Israeli war in which a hypothetical at least possibility of Israel using a nuclear weapon against Arab states was on the table,” Divsallar detailed on Israel’s involvement with nuclear weapons. “We had it back in the '80s again, when Iraq attempted to strike—and three times did it—against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant. We had it when Israel bombed Iraq in 1980 and 1981, and then also in Syria in 2007, which Israel bombed, actually, Al Kibar nuclear installations in Syria,” he added.

Divsallar went on to explain that these past three events were attacks on non-operating nuclear facilities, however a new and more dangerous trend picked up momentum since 2007, where operating nuclear infrastructures were the main targets. “It means that there are nuclear materials there, and there are risks—environmental risks—of a possible strike,” he said. “One of the first cases is Israel—and probably U.S. and Israel—use of Stuxnet in 2007 in Natanz facilities in Iran […] And again, Houthis’ use of missiles against Emirati nuclear facilities, which of course at that time was not yet built.”

Aside from nuclear weapons, chemical and biological warfare capabilities in the region also raise concerns. Some countries, such as Egypt and Israel, have signed but not ratified relevant treaties, keeping their intentions vague. Syria, on the other hand, has been accused of using chemical weapons in past conflicts, which further stressed the region’s history with non-conventional warfare. “This is a region that has seen some of the gravest uses of WMDs in the past,” Divsallar said, reminding the audience of Iraq’s chemical attacks in the 1980s and more recent allegations in Syria.

The speaker went on to highlight the risk of conventional wars escalating into WMD conflicts as another concerning issue plaguing the region. Divsallar warned that historical precedent, from the 1973 Arab-Israeli War to Saddam Hussein’s threats in the 1990s, exemplifies how fast a regional conflict can raise concerns over nuclear or chemical use. More recently, he said, comments coming out of Tehran and Tel Aviv regarding nuclear policy have revealed how conventional deterrence failures could push governments toward considering more extreme measures for security. “A conventional war could change its trend and become a non-conventional war— how fast that dynamic might evolve, we may not have the possibility to control.”

The ultimate solution, Divsallar claimed, lies in arms control, crisis communication, and transparency. “Why not bring them together and have a nuclear dialogue?” he said, adding that “there is no ad hoc, country-specific solution to the WMD threat. The interconnections are so deep that you cannot just answer one state actor.” The expert went on to warn that “the WMD threat is alive in the background of everything we are seeing today, and it may come to the forefront when the political or military situation is ready for it.”