"Iran maintained that while it was open to limiting enrichment levels, giving up enrichment entirely was unacceptable and would collapse the negotiations." [giving up enrichment entirely]
Iran's explicit red line against full enrichment dismantlement—even under military pressure—directly evidences the structural collision between external disarmament demands and the proliferant state's sovereignty-as-deterrence doctrine.
Reasoning from this article
The article documents that across multiple rounds, military strikes, and a full war, Iran never conceded the enrichment right in principle—only offered temporary moratoria or stockpile transfers. The final MOU called for Iran to 'maintain the status quo' rather than dismantle, a weaker outcome than the JCPOA. This generalizes to a structural pattern: states that have invested heavily in nuclear programs treat enrichment capability as a sovereignty marker and deterrence asset that cannot be traded away regardless of economic pressure, because doing so would signal vulnerability to regime change. The result is framework agreements that defer the core dispute, creating recurring negotiation cycles.