“You want to know why we won’t surrender? Because we are Iranians,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragushi wrote after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said President Donald Trump wondered why Iran did not bow to U.S. pressure over its nuclear program.
In one line, this statement captures much of the Islamic Republic’s proud worldview: Iran is more than just a regional state. Its leaders see the country as a historic power worthy of respect.
It remains unclear whether China’s confidence in countering U.S. pressure will prove misplaced. Progress appeared to have been made in the third round of indirect talks between the United States and Iran on Thursday, despite Tehran’s refusal to budge on key U.S. demands, according to Iranian officials and Omani mediator.
Much of the disagreement centers on Iran’s insistence on enriching uranium on its own soil. Uranium is a fuel used in nuclear power plants, but when enriched to very high levels it can be used to make nuclear weapons.
As a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Iran maintains that it has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, and that it should not specifically exclude or deny technology possessed by other NPT member states.
The United States recognizes Iran’s right to civilian nuclear power, but does not trust Iranian government assurances that Iran’s enrichment program will continue peacefully.
The reasons why Iran won’t make any concessions are as follows.
national pride and sovereignty
For Tehran, its nuclear program is about its identity as a modern state.
Iran is a country of 92 million people with a 2,500-year-old civilization that once rivaled ancient Greece and Rome. From the empire of Cyrus the Great to the Safavids and the imperial era, its historical self-image has been that of a great power, not a peripheral state under pressure from other countries.
Despite being ruled by a clergy since 1979, Iran frequently deploys nationalist symbols and evokes a pre-Islamic past as well as a revolutionary identity. The national ideology is a blend of Shia ideology and pride in Persia’s scientific, cultural, and imperial achievements.
Moreover, the nuclear program was actually created with U.S. assistance, its origins go back decades, and it caused little concern internationally for most of Iran’s modern history.
Acquiring nuclear technology is therefore not just a technological achievement, but a demonstration of Iran’s sovereignty and progress to the level of a world power.
Tehran’s nuclear program “currently serves as a structural pillar of the Islamic Republic, especially in terms of demonstrating indigenous scientific and technological capabilities under pressure,” said Danny Sitrinowicz, a senior fellow on the Iran-Shia Axis program at the National Security Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel.
“As a result, abandoning the nuclear program will not be seen as a mere policy concession, but domestically as an abandonment of one of the regime’s fundamental achievements.”
Hardliners in the government have repeatedly warned that abandoning uranium enrichment would be humiliating the country.
“If Iran abandons enrichment completely, especially with limited sanctions relief, hardliners will see that as a capitulation,” said Sanam Baqir, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House think tank in London. The administration can negotiate compromises on its nuclear program before abandoning enrichment, but only “if it provides clear economic or strategic benefits.”
Despite the recent massive U.S. military buildup around Iran and repeated warnings from the Trump administration that it will not tolerate enrichment, Tehran has not changed its position. The United States has refused to offer concessions that go far beyond those made during the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers (which President Trump withdrew from in 2018), and is now seeking broader relief from U.S. sanctions, not just those lifted under that deal.
It also rejected U.S. efforts to expand negotiations to include ballistic missile programs and support for armed groups across the Middle East.
Experts say the Iranian government is counting on Trump to avoid war and views his regional military buildup as an effort to gain influence rather than a precursor to an attack.
“The Iranian government views zero enrichment as a strategic red line and is betting that Washington will ultimately accept past restrictions rather than risk escalation,” said Chatham House expert Baqir. “We assume that President Trump would prefer an agreement that could be judged as tougher than a protracted conflict.”
Iran has also framed the deal as a potential economic victory for the Trump administration, which has prioritized business and trade. Iran is the world’s largest oil and gas producer and has a large consumer market that has been largely off-limits to Western companies for decades.
deterrence and leverage
Despite concerns that Iran’s nuclear activities would shorten the path to a bomb, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has vowed through a religious edict never to pursue a nuclear bomb.
But even if Iran were sincere in its declarations, enrichment would give Iran a powerful strategic lever as a marginal nuclear power, giving it the capability and infrastructure to produce weapons if it chooses in the future. In the Iranian government’s view, the ability to quickly change one’s mind is a way to prevent coercion or attack from adversaries.
After President Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran demonstrated how it was using that leverage to gradually enrich uranium to levels far beyond those needed for civilian power generation. The implicit message to the U.S. government was clear. The 2015 deal sets internationally verifiable limits on Iranian enrichment that would no longer apply without a deal.
But that strategy seems to have backfired. Instead of forcing Washington to return to the deal, it ultimately led to a surprise Israeli attack in June 2025 and the first direct American military attack on Iranian territory. At the time the United States bombed its facilities, Iran was the only country without an active nuclear weapons program and had enriched uranium to 60%, just short of weapons-grade levels of about 90%.
The 12-day summer war “has likely forced Iran to reevaluate this assumption,” Citrinovic said. “The scale and precision of the U.S. and Israeli attacks demonstrated that threshold status does not exempt Iran from military action.”
Still, the Iranian government is unlikely to abandon its nuclear program, Citrinovich said. From that perspective, “completely abandoning its nuclear program would expose Iran to the possibility of future coercion and attack.”
