On Jan. 22, 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, the nuclear chief of the Iranian theocracy, acknowledged that Iran had fooled the 5+1 and IAEA group of foreign ministers – these were U.S. and European foreign ministers who negotiated the Iran deal – into signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. That was the deal President Obama signed with other leaders and touted to the U.S. public. President Trump scrapped it.

In an unprecedented confession, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the mullah regime's Atomic Agency, acknowledged that the mullahs had lied in nuclear negotiations with the five world powers at the Arak nuclear site and had in fact hidden some of the banned equipment.

"As for the tubes we had, the tubes through which the fuel passes, we had bought similar tubes before, but I couldn't declare them at the time. Only one person in Iran knew this," he said on Jan. 22 in an interview with the 4th Channel of State Television, IRIB, about uranium enrichment tubes that were blocked by cement in the presence of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors.

"Only the highest authority of the regime [Ali Khamenei] was aware of this and no one else[.] ... His Holiness [Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] had said that you should be careful with these people, they are not trustworthy and do not keep their promises. Well, we had to work smart, and not burn the bridges behind us. We also had to build a bridge that would allow us to move faster if we had to resume our nuclear activities," he admitted.

"It was a tube two or three centimeters in diameter and three or four meters long[.] ... We had purchased the same quantity of similar tubes. We were told to butcher them with cement, so we poured cement into these tubes ... but we didn't say we had other tubes," explained the Iranian nuclear chief, before adding, "We will use them now."

These confessions reveal that during the nuclear negotiations with the 5+1 that led to the July 2015 agreement, Tehran's sole intention was to fool the world powers to buy time, without interrupting its nuclear arms race.

The concealment of unauthorized equipment at the Arak site is the latest in a long series of deceptions by the clerical regime in its nuclear projects that are being carried out under the control of the regime's leaders, in particular Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani, the president of the Islamic Republic, who was the main negotiator of Iranian nuclear power with the world powers. This is an issue that the Iranian Resistance has been raising since 1991, having warned against its threats.

Yes, the Iranian Resistance had most certainly warned these signatories.

Immediately after the signing of the JCPOA on July 14, 2015, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who leads the Resistance, warned that "this agreement does not close the mullahs' path to deception and access to nuclear bombs."

Earlier, on Nov. 24, 2013, after a temporary nuclear agreement with the 5+1, the president of the National Council of Iranian Resistance (CNRI) stated that "the Iranian regime's compliance with its international obligations depends precisely on the degree of determination and firmness of the world community towards the regime's bad intentions and its deceptiveness."

"Any indulgence, hesitation, and concession on the part of the international community will encourage Khamenei to turn once again to the manufacture of the atomic bomb by resorting to deception and cheating. The mullahs' regime has never volunteered to report its nuclear activities to the IAEA in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The Iranian Resistance was the first party to reveal the regime's clandestine installations and nuclear deception," the Iranian opposition leader added.

There have been precedents.

In his book National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, Hassan Rouhani, the president of the clerical regime, writes: "In 2002, activities took place in a calm atmosphere, but the Mujahideen [PMOI or, Persian, MeK] suddenly made much noise by making false accusations[.] ... Our Atomic Energy Organization has considered that the Natanz facility must be completed in order to confront the IAEA with a fait accompli[.] ... In 2000, the Atomic Energy Organisation promised the [Iranian] authorities that by March 2003, by using 54,000 centrifuges, they would be able to produce 30 tonnes of fuel enriched to 3.5%."

On March 5, 2006, the Sunday Telegraph revealed: "In a speech delivered at an in camera meeting of prominent Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rouhani, who led talks with the European Troika until last year, revealed how Tehran played for a long time and tried to fool the West after its secret nuclear programme was discovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002."