EMET Statement on Former Iranian Majles Member’s Admission of Bomb Aspirations

Contact: Naomi Grant
Endowment for Middle East Truth
202.601.7422
ngrant@emetonline.org

(April 27, 2022—Washington, DC) Former Majles (Iranian Parliament) member Ali Motahari made it clear in a Monday Iranian Television (ISCA) interview that Iran’s original intent for its nuclear activity was not for peaceful purposes, but to build a bomb.

“With regard to what we started… If we could have kept it [a secret] until we performed a [nuclear] test, then it would have been a done deal. Like in Pakistan,” Motahari said, according to a MEMRI translation.

Motahari then went on to argue, “they would have taken us into consideration even more,” with a nuclear bomb and that Iran “should have proceeded to the threshold.”

EMET implores the Biden administration to stop nuclear negotiations at once and renew sanctions against Iran, which is no longer even pretending that its nuclear capabilities are for “peaceful” purposes.

A State Department report released last week clearly demonstrates that Iran has been rebuffing International Atomic Energy Administration Inspectors from at least four suspicious nuclear sites.

The Institute for Science and International Security issued a report on April 11^th indicating Iran already has 40 to 42 kilograms of highly enriched uranium at 60%, which it states “with this quantity, an enrichment level of 60 percent suffices to create a relatively compact nuclear explosive; further enrichment to 80 or 90 percent is not needed.”

Israel has stated this repeatedly and proven it in the stunning raid the Mossad carried out in Tehran in January 2018, when they absconded with 50,000 pages of documents, proving that the Islamic Republic had clearly been working on a nuclear bomb all along

Diplomacy has clearly failed and the US has already given Iran much more than Iran could have ever imagined without receiving anything in return. Russian envoy Mikhail Ulyanov has states as much on a YouTube video where he gloats about the degree of concessions that he and his Chinese colleague were able to extract from America.

EMET wishes to thank, once again, the 18 House Democrats led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ) who stood against the Iran deal, the more than 160 House Republicans led by Rep. Michael Gallagher (Wisc.), as well as 49 Republican Senators led by Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator James Risch and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator James Inhofe.

Said EMET Founder and President Sarah Stern, “It is clear from former Majles member Ali Motahari’s statement, from the stonewalling of the IAEA’s inspectors, from the vast quantities of highly enriched uranium that far exceed the 3.65% level that was proscribed by the JCPOA, that Iran’s intentions have never been peaceful.”

On December 24th, Iran sent out 16 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles in war games with a mock Israeli nuclear facility as its target. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander  Hussein Salami said it was “a clear warning” to the Zionist regime and if Israel makes any move, “we will cut off its hands.”

Ms. Stern continues, “The last seven years has taught us that Iran cannot be contained or induced by lavish financial packages. This is a brutal theocracy with hegemonic ambitions. The money we release into their coffers as an inducement to sign a deal will not be used to benefit people on the street, but to build more bombs and missiles and for their terror proxies around the globe.

Ms. Stern adds, “What is deeply and profoundly troubling to me is how Iran’s nuclear behavior and their malign behavior in the region and the world has not been given the media attention it deserves. Equally disturbing is how the Biden administration does not seem to recognize the real and present danger of the Iranian nuclear threat, not only to Israel and the Gulf, but because of  Hezbollah cells within our own country as well as the very strong presence of Hezbollah in Latin America, to the United States as well.”