In a April 24, 2022 interview with Iran Sanctions ISCA News, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Iranian Majles member Ali Motaheri said the quiet part out loud.
Although no longer serving in the Iranian parliament and currently a private Iranian citizen, it is hard to believe Motaheri would have spoken so openly without at least tacit regime acquiescence.
What exactly did Motaheri say?
He told the interviewer that Iran’s goal from the beginning of its nuclear program was in fact to build a nuclear bomb. Iran Sanctions
He added that Iran’s failure was to keep that purpose secret until it was ready to openly test a nuclear device.
When his interviewer wondered whether his statements would not affect the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear talks among Iran, the P-5 +1 (Permanent Five members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany), and the European Union (EU) in a negative way, Motaheri replied (rather implausibly) that “Nobody notices what I am saying.”
He also (and likewise implausibly) asserted that the sole reason for an Iranian nuclear weapon capability was “as a means of intimidation.”
Tellingly though, he also quoted from Qur’an verse 8:60, which commands believers to “Strike terror into the hearts of the enemy.”
In fact, evidence of Tehran’s true nuclear ambitions has been available for many years. We might begin with the Aug. 14, 2002 Washington, D.C. press conference during which Alireza Jafarzadeh, the Deputy Director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), revealed publicly for the first time the existence of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program.
At that briefing, Jafarzadeh displayed satellite images of the Natanz uranium enrichment site and the Arak heavy water facility; subsequent revelations about other Iranian nuclear facilities followed and were responsible for prompting IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspections that served to place at least some level of monitoring over the program.