In other words, the Obama Administration got played or were cool with it. And they got billions which should never have been released.
Via Times of Israel:
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has detailed how Iran quietly purchased replacement parts for its Arak nuclear reactor while it was conducting negotiations for an international agreement under which it knew it would be required to destroy the original components.
In an interview broadcast on Iran’s Channel 4 TV on January 22, Salehi recalled that during talks for the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 deal that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for it dismantling the weapons-capable parts of its nuclear program, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned his country’s negotiators that he expected Western parties to renege on the agreement.
An English translation of some parts of the interview were provided Thursday by the Washington-based non-profit Middle East Media Research Institute.
“When our team was in the midst of the negotiations, we knew that [the Westerners] would ultimately renege on their promises,” Salehi said. “The leader [Khamenei] warned us that they were violators of agreements. We had to act wisely. Not only did we avoid destroying the bridges that we had built, but we also built new bridges that would enable us to go back faster if needed.”