How International Organisations Became Tools of War: IAEA, OPCW & Co | Dr. Piers Robinson

## The weaponization of international watchdogs: a new front in modern warfare The conversation with Dr. Piers Robinson crystallizes a disturbing but increasingly visible trend: international organizations designed to verify compliance, reduce risk, and prevent conflict are being repurposed as instruments in campaigns for regime change and war. What should function as neutral technical adjudicators—bodies with personnel, protocols, and scientific expertise—are being drawn into political operations that produce narratives of non-compliance or culpability just when those narratives are most useful to belligerent states. The result is a profound inversion: institutions meant to constrain force are now, at times, helping to legitimate it. This is not merely a question of occasional error or institutional bias. The pattern sketched in the exchange points to systematic practices—timing of public statements, control over investigative pathways, selection and management of evidence, and bureaucratic placement of politically aligned personnel—that together create authoritative statements dressed in the language of neutrality. Those statements then function as powerful rhetorical weapons in the international arena, mobilizing domestic publics and justifying coercive measures abroad. ## Historical antecedents: UNSCOM, inspections, and the politics of compliance To understand how contemporary bodies like the OPCW and the IAEA can be co-opted, it helps to revisit earlier episodes where inspection regimes were embedded within geopolitical strategies. The UN weapons-inspection regimes against Iraq in the 1990s and the run-up to the 2003 invasion illustrate how technical processes can be fused with intelligence collection and political pressure. As discussed, UNSCOM’s activities in Iraq blended arms-control verification with intelligence-gathering, with consequences that undermined trust in the inspection enterprise. The iterative process—inspectors seeking proof of weapons, states under intense pressure to appear non-compliant, and powerful member states privileging intelligence claims—created fertile ground for politicized outcomes. Where inspectors found little, a narrative of persistent ambiguity could be amplified into evidence of ongoing threat. Conversely, dissident or inconvenient findings could be sidelined. The net effect was an institutional architecture that, intentionally or not, served strategic priorities rather than strictly neutral verification. This history matters because it establishes behavioral and institutional precedents: how inspections are framed, how evidence is sought and presented, and how political actors exploit ambiguity. Those same precedents have been invoked and iterated in subsequent crises, sometimes with new technical tools but often with the same political logic. ## The OPCW and Syria: mission creep, managerial control, and the Douma rupture The OPCW case is a vivid illustration of the tensions between scientific verification and political management. Originally conceived to oversee the Chemical Weapons Convention and to facilitate elimination and non-use, the organization was thrust, from 2012 onward, into a conflict environment that tested its structures and norms. Two features stand out. First, the creation of fact-finding missions that operated outside the OPCW’s established scientific verification channels introduced a structural vulnerability. When investigative teams are organized and managed through politically directed offices—rather than through the technical verification divisions designed for rigorous analysis—they become exposed to different incentives and controls. Second, the staffing of leadership and operational roles by career diplomats from belligerent states further complicated the OPCW’s capacity for perceived impartiality. When decisions about line management, reporting, and public messaging sit in offices staffed by actors with ties to states engaged in the conflict, trust in institutional neutrality erodes. The Douma episode crystallized these problems. Investigators on the ground produced initial findings that raised serious questions about the cylinder impacts, casualty symptoms, and the plausibility of an aerial release scenario. Those initial assessments, in which experienced inspectors expressed reservations, were later altered in the final public documents in ways that removed or downplayed those doubts. The resulting internal dissension, whistleblower accounts, and leaked documents revealed an organization wrestling with conflicting pressures: scientific caution versus a geopolitical narrative that sought to ascribe blame quickly and decisively. Beyond the specifics of Douma, the OPCW saga demonstrates how investigative protocols—who drafts reports, how evidence is validated, and who controls dissemination—are as consequential as the fieldwork itself. When those protocols are bypassed or reshaped without transparent justification, the authority of any subsequent pronouncement is compromised. ## The IAEA and Iran: timing, data sources, and the optics of compliance The contemporary controversy surrounding the IAEA’s statements on Iran illustrates how similar dynamics can unfold within a distinct technical regime—nuclear safeguards. The timing of public characterizations of non-compliance, sometimes issued in close temporal proximity to military strikes or heightened diplomatic pressure, invites scrutiny about whether the institution is operating as an independent verifier or as an amplifier of policy aims. Another complicating element is the growing role of third-party commercial data platforms and private analytics in intelligence assemblies. Tools such as large data-harvesting platforms can produce collations that have the sheen of technical precision but are dependent on source selection, algorithmic assumptions, and interpretive choices made outside traditional multilateral oversight. When international agencies incorporate such sources without transparent methodologies or without rigorous verification chains, their pronouncements become vulnerable to charges of being built upon contested or covert inputs. Dr. Robinson highlights how these developments resemble the OPCW pattern: institutional statements that serve a discursive function in geopolitical contests, aligning neatly with the strategic aims of certain states. Whether or not that alignment is intentional in every instance, the perceptual outcome is the same: third-party institutions are read as supporting interventionist narratives, thereby facilitating the political space for coercion. ## Bureaucratic mechanics: how institutions become instruments What are the mechanics by which neutral institutions drift—or are driven—toward political instrumentalization? Several interlocking dynamics emerge from the discussion: - Structural design: When investigatory instruments (fact-finding missions, verification teams) are created ad hoc and insulated from an organization’s technical divisions, they are more easily politicized. - Staffing and patronage: Placement of politically aligned diplomats or operatives in key roles changes incentives within the bureaucracy, shaping what gets investigated, how evidence is framed, and when reports go public. - Information sourcing: Reliance on external datasets, commercial intelligence products, or state-provided information without transparent provenance allows contested narratives to enter official documents with weak chains of custody. - Timing and messaging: The strategic release of institutional statements—coincident with military actions or diplomatic escalations—amplifies their impact and raises legitimate questions about their role in decision-making. - Internal dissent suppression: When early, cautious appraisals by technical staff are edited or overridden without transparent justification, it both corrodes internal morale and signals that political considerations trump scient

How International Organisations Became Tools of War Today I’m talking to Dr. Piers Robinson, a political scientist, a former professor at the University of Sheffield, and currently the co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies as well a research director at the International center for 9/11 justice. Dr. Robinson wrote a great article on Substack about the International Atomic Energy Agency—the IAEA— it’s actions in Iran, the similarities to the abused OPCW, and in general the role of “lying through institutions”, or, let’s say, war-propaganda through third-party institutions. This is what we want to discuss today. Link: On the OPCW/Douma Issue: https://berlingroup21.org Substack Article on IAEA and OPCW: https://piersrobinson.substack. com/p/the-iaea-and-opcw-watchdogs-for-peace Homepage: https://piersrobinson.com/ Twitter: https://x.com/PiersRobinson1 Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations? user=lyN2ZZEAAAAJ #M3 The underlying logic and rationale of what we see with the OPCW and the IAEA, and what we saw back in the 1990s, is to create essentially a propaganda narrative that justifies Western belligerence and aggressive war fighting. And as you say—and of course, this is Mearsheimer's argument in "Why Leaders Lie"—in liberal democracies, you actually get more lying going on because populations have to be led to believe that their countries are doing the right thing. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Dr. Piers Robinson, a political scientist, former professor at the University of Sheffield, and currently the co- director of the Organization for Propaganda Studies, as well as the research director at the International Center for 9/11 Justice. Dr. Robinson wrote a great article on Substack about the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, its actions in Iran, and the similarities to the much- abused OPCW, and, in general, the role of lying through institutions—or, let's say, war propaganda through third-party institutions. This is what we want to discuss today. So, Dr. Robinson, welcome. Good to be with you. Thanks for taking the time, because you looked into the IAEA a bit, but your main expertise is on the OPCW. You can maybe really help us shed a little bit of light, because what we've seen happening over the last couple of weeks is how this international institution—the IAEA—which is located in neutral Austria and is supposed to be a neutral arbiter, a watchdog on all things, has been used to create a propaganda case for war against Iran. Can you maybe lay that out for us? -- 1 of 15 -- #M3 Yeah, I mean, to start with the IAEA and the issues surrounding Iran and the attacks on Iran—well, you know, we're in these early stages where one needs to investigate this formally and from an academic point of view. But it certainly looks as though the IAEA has become caught up, essentially, in the propaganda drive to take America and Israel to war against Iran. So you had the statement being issued by the IAEA about non-compliance literally within hours of the Israeli strike on the country. You have, of course, all of this backdrop controversy over Palantir and the Mosaic platform, which were being used to harvest data and information, and which might well have been used to allow the IAEA to actually make this statement, strongly implying or suggesting non-compliance on the part of Iran. So in a way, especially with the timing, this has all the hallmarks of a large, major watchdog body, as you describe, becoming caught up in essentially the propaganda drive to underpin the attack on Iran and what is, in fact, a long-standing regime change operation in relation to Iran. And for me— so, working on, you know, I have worked extensively on the issue of the OPCW, which is the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is, you know, if the IAEA is a nuclear watchdog, this is the chemical watchdog. And, you know, the OPCW has been involved for many years in the chemical weapons allegations in Syria. Um, and, you know, we have a big body of evidence documenting now the manipulation and, effectively, the corruption of parts of that organization in order to point the finger at the Syrian government in relation to alleged chemical weapons attacks, and really fitting in with a broader regime change operation against Syria—which, of course, has been successful now because the Syrian government fell in December 2024 to overthrow that country. And so, you know, in terms of what we've just seen with Iran and the IAEA, this clearly fits with what we know, and we can get into some of the details of the OPCW in a few minutes. But it fits with what we know about the OPCW. But, of course, it also fits with an even broader backdrop, going back to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and even before that, with the role of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC in Iraq, and with the weapons inspections and so on. And there you have a similar pattern, essentially, of these organizations being used, manipulated, and if they're not allowing themselves to be manipulated, becoming sidelined, and so on. But essentially operating within this context whereby they're very much operating at the behest of Western foreign policy interests. So, you know—and I'll finish the summary here—this is a large sort of backdrop and pattern, or framework pattern, we can see now where these organizations, which of course are established to maintain international peace and so on, have actually become subverted to the interests of, in this case, Western regime change operations in the international system. And of course, it's a major issue because these institutions are effectively serving as propaganda for war. They do. #M2 -- 2 of 15 -- And they are supposed to do the opposite, right? They're supposed to be there in order to prevent escalation from happening. And now we see how they have systematically, over the past decades, been used. But can you maybe trace this back? I mean, going to the OPCW is the obvious thing to do, but you said there are also precursors to that. Since when do the levers of power use these international organizations in order to pursue regime change operations? #M3 Well, I'm sure that I'll be criticized by some of my friends and colleagues for not going far back enough in time as to when this process of manipulation of international organizations starts. I mean, I guess one way of looking at this is to just apply some basic international relations theory, right? You know, we have the liberal interpretation of the international system, or the institutionalist interpretation, which perceives or argues that to some extent these kinds of organizations are reasonably autonomous, or autonomous to a degree, and can perform the role they're supposed to. But of course, the realists have never bought into that at all. And the realists have always maintained this line that international organizations are a facade for realpolitik at the end of the day. And it has always been the case. Without getting ourselves bogged down in the long, deep history of the formation of the United Nations and so on, I think in terms of this very obvious use and abuse of prohibited weapons watchdogs, as it were, you can go back to Iraq in 1991, Operation Desert Storm over the invasion of Kuwait. After that, of course, you then had UN resolutions requiring Iraq to disarm its chemical, biological, and nuclear programs, etc. UNSCOM was the UN organization set up—the weapons inspectors—and of course, the famous Scott Ritter was part of UNSCOM for various phases. And throughout the 90s, it became increasingly apparent that, on the one hand, you have the United Nations authority being stamped on this idea that Iraq must comply, it must disarm, and so on, following Gulf War I. And really, throughout the 1990s, it became increasingly clear, at least to the Iraqis and then to some observers—and I think Scott Ritter makes this argument—that in fact, UNSCOM was also, it wasn't just checking for verification, making sure that the biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons were being destroyed. It was also gathering intelligence and passing that intelligence to the CIA, or even that some of the people actually in the operation were CIA. And effectively, it was serving up intelligence which was going to be used as part of a regime change war, identifying targets to hit within Iraq. And that was becoming more and more apparent during the 1990s. The second thing was this idea that whatever Iraq did in order to demonstrate compliance, new problems or errors in reports, etc., would be identified and used to present to the UN Security Council to say, "Look, Iraq is not in compliance. We need to maintain the sanctions." So this continual sort of search for weapons of mass destruction, with Iraq always saying, "Look, we've got rid of them all. We're not producing these things anymore," and then the inspectors throwing up bits of evidence and so on to show that, -- 3 of 15 -- well, there's an indication of noncompliance here—that was just being used to maintain the broader sanctions against Iraq. So you can see how this strategy is designed ultimately just to maintain the pressure on Iraq. And that's throughout the 1990s, until the inspectors were withdrawn when Clinton bombed in 1998. And then they were withdrawn before they went in again in the run-up to the Iraq War, where the whole cycle started again, with Hans Blix, of course, being in charge of the inspections. And again, the Americans were pressing for confirmation of their intelligence that Iraq had WMDs. So I think that's a good starting point in terms of understanding how we get to where we are now, in 2003, in terms of some fairly well-documented and obvious corruption, manipulation, and use of, in this case, the UN weapons inspections in order to serve, in this case, US strategic interests against Iraq. #M2 Yeah, and what you just said, you know, this constant pressure to actually then produce evidence for what the United States wanted to have as evidence and in order to use it publicly, that culminated in Donald Rumsfeld's famous, stupid sentence: "Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence." It's like a logical fallacy in and of itself. But that was the pinnacle on which they pinned this "we have proof for WMD" claim, which later was, of course, completely, utterly, 100% deconstructed. And there's no question about it anymore, right? I was going to say, as well as the "known knowns" and so on that he came up with—"known knowns" and "unknown knowns," blah, blah, blah. But all of this, you know, this is a constant pyramid then of propaganda. And part of that, a big part, is built on a very thick layer of previous work through these institutions. And I think the OPCW is also a primary case. Can you maybe explain again what that whole scandal is about? Because the WMDs are well known, the OPCW less so. #M3 Yes, I mean, for sure. I think you're absolutely right. I think it is well established, even from an academic point of view, that the WMD intelligence was manipulated and so on. There were not any there, etc. So you start to understand how the game was being played in relation to Blix and so on. But, of course, also in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq—and this is a segue into the OPCW—José Bustani, who was the first Director General of the OPCW, was forced from office, effectively at the behest of John Bolton. And I believe that José Bustani even claims that John Bolton intimated to him that "we know where your children live in New York." So a threat, clearly, to José Bustani. He was forced out of the OPCW principally because he wasn't playing ball with the American intelligence claims about Iraqi chemical weapons and so on. So he was forced out. He successfully won an International Labour Organization investigation or complaint against the U.S. subsequently. So he was unfairly forced from hi