Why would Iran ever give up nukes?

Of course Iran never gave up on nukes.

And not during JCPOA either, as the Council on Foreign Relations aptly pointed out in July of 2016:

"The greatest imminent danger in last year’s nuclear deal, the JCPOA, was always that Iran would cheat--taking all the advantages of the deal, but then seeking to move forward more quickly toward a nuclear weapon--and that the Obama administration would be silent in the face of that cheating.

This was always a reasonable prospect, given the history of arms control agreements. Those who negotiate such agreements wish to defend them. They do not wish to say, six or twelve months and even years later, that they were duped and that the deals must be considered null and void.

Last week, Germany’s intelligence agency produced a report detailing Iranian cheating. Here is an excerpt from the news story:

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said in its annual report that Iran has a “clandestine” effort to seek illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies “at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.” The findings by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s equivalent of the FBI, were issued in a 317-page report last week."

https://www.cfr.org/articles/iran-cheating-nuclear-deal

It's crazy how conservatives rattle on so much about gun rights and protection against the government but can't see why Iran wouldn't want to give up their nukes.

Iran actually tried giving up on making nukes with the Obama JCPOA. tRump killed the whole 50 year policy of nuclear non-proliferation when he killed the JCPOA.

The Obama admin secured an agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, that was signed in 2015 by the United States and Iran as well as China, Russia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Under the deal, Iran agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons and to allow continuous monitoring of its compliance in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

The monitoring plan under Obama was a rigorous technical inspection regime of Iran's facilities. Key parts of the inspection instrumentation were implemented and verified by Obama's Energy Secretary, an MIT nuclear physicist named Dr Ernest Moniz. Moniz's system could identify traces (secondary radioactivity) left by radioactive materials even after they had been moved.

It was Obama's inspection deal that halted Iran's uranium enrichment program in exchange for relaxed sanctions.

Moniz's technical inspection regime was a major part of what tRump blew up. Without the Obama deal, Iran immediately restarted their UF6 centrifuge uranium enrichment program.

It was the failure of tRump to "make a better deal" that forced tRump to drop bunker buster bombs on Iran's uranium enrichment program.

Source: The White House. Date: June 25, 2025

It was the failure of that bombing campaign that caused "no new wars" tRump to begin the current war on Iran.

It is the failure of the current war on Iran that has closed the Strait of Hormuz for the last 11 or so weeks, raising global energy and food prices.