UC-123 airplanes spraying herbicides in central South Vietnam, 1966. (Source)

By Uriel Araujo

The recent end of a prolonged drought in Iran is triggering controversy across West Asia: Iranian and Iraqi authorities claim that the unusually heavy rainfall following Iranian strikes against certain American facilities in the Gulf indicate that Tehran in fact disrupted a covert weather-modification program – allegedly operated by the US and Israel.

Iraqi MP Al-Kaikhani in turn has claimed that Washington and Tel Aviv had been “stealing clouds”, causing droughts regionally.

Some analysts have dismissed the claims as “conspiracy”. The broader issue however deserves serious consideration: the question is not whether Iran has proven the existence of a US-Israeli weather weapon (so far it has not). It is whether such weather modification can be weaponized, whether great and regional powers have explored these possibilities in the past, and whether modern geoengineering technologies could eventually become instruments of geopolitical competition.

Military weather modification is no science fiction: the clearest documented case remains Operation Popeye during the Vietnam War (1967-1972) involving “cloud-seeding” missions to trigger landslides and disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines.

It remained highly classified until exposed in the early 1970s. Operation Popeye then directly inspired the 1977 Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), which prohibits the hostile military use of environmental modification techniques with widespread effects. It would make little sense to negotiate and ratify an international treaty banning a capability that policymakers regarded as impossible back in the seventies.

Almost 50 years later, weather modification initiatives continue to exist in various forms. China operates one of the world’s largest cloud-seeding programs, employing aircraft, and drones to influence precipitation for agricultural and drought-relief purposes. Iran itself has experimented with cloud-seeding operations in recent years and reportedly expanded these efforts in late 2025.

More ambitious geoengineering concepts, including solar radiation management and marine cloud brightening, remain largely experimental – allegedly. Yet they are openly discussed by governments, think tanks, and scientific institutions. No wonder concerns about their potential military applications are growing.

An important warning comes from Professor Nayef Al-Rodhan, head of the Outer Space Security Cluster at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. In a recent piece, Al-Rodhan argues that geoengineering technologies possess an undeniable dual-use character: systems intended to mitigate climate change could also become instruments of coercion, strategic leverage, or geopolitical rivalry.

The point is that whether or not large-scale weather warfare is currently feasible (and to what extent), the perception that states possess such capabilities can itself destabilize international relations. For one thing, efforts to alter rainfall patterns in one region could be interpreted as hostile actions elsewhere. Climate intervention may very well become another arena of great-power competition alongside cyberspace, outer space, and artificial intelligence.

Back to Iranian and Iraqi allegations, one of the counterpoints made is that such has been banned under international law, as mentioned. Alas, the claim that weather warfare is illegal does not prove it is not happening. History, by the way, offers numerous examples of governments engaging in activities that violated international norms, treaties, or human rights standards.

The US experience alone provides several examples: targeted killings through drone strikes in a number of countries have generated longstanding legal controversies in recent years. More famously, the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War caused devastating consequences.

Similarly, Israel faces serious scrutiny from UN experts, Amnesty International, and others regarding conduct in Gaza, including genocide allegations.

The point here is that states sometimes do violate international law: the illegality of weather warfare thus cannot be used as evidence that weather warfare is impossible!

Also, consider the following:

CIA infamous MKUltra experiments evolving mind control and “brainwashing” were once ridiculed as paranoid fantasies before official investigations confirmed them.

The NSA’s mass surveillance programs were likewise dismissed by many until the Snowden revelations.

The COVID-19 laboratory-leak hypothesis was widely rejected as “paranoia” before becoming the serious subject of official investigation as it is today.

Notably, Pentagon investigations now acknowledge the existence of “unexplained aerial phenomena” after decades of ridicule surrounding the topic.

The same pattern occurs regarding military technology:

Stealth aircraft such as the F-117 were often ridiculed as UFO lore or impossible due to aerodynamics (“it won’t fly”).

CIA-operated U-2 spy planes in Area 51 generated UFO rumors, and when the first allegations surfaced many experts believed the altitudes were impossible for manned aircraft – in fact various “UFO” or “UAP” sightings may in fact be phenomena connected to classified tech.

Before 1945, the idea of a single bomb destroying an entire city seemed fantastical to most observers – and yet the atomic bomb was developed in total secrecy during WWII (Manhattan Project).

The point is that what appears impossible to the public today may become routine tomorrow after years of black-budget research and compartmentalized development.

It is true that none of this proves that Iran destroyed an American or Israeli  weather weapon. Droughts and rainfall patterns have many causes, and climate systems are notoriously complex.

Yet the timing of recent events in Iran inevitably raises eyebrows. Combined with growing global interest in geoengineering, all the documented historical precedents, ongoing cloud-seeding programs, and the strategic incentives, the allegations deserve investigation rather than mockery.

Professor Al-Rodhan’s warning should therefore be taken seriously. Weather warfare, conducted in the Vietnam era, remains a potential future domain of competition, addressed by international law.

It is true that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is also true that history has repeatedly shown that extraordinary secrecy can produce capabilities that surprise the world when revealed. In an age of hybrid warfare, gray-zone competition, and increasingly sophisticated climate technologies, speculation about covert weather-modification activities is not absurd at all.

Whether Iran’s suspicions ultimately prove justified (regarding drought in the Gulf) remains unknown. In any case, the suspicions themselves indicate the atmosphere is becoming yet another geopolitical battleground.

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Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/iran-ended-drought-destroying-us-israel-weather-weapon/5928864