Since mastering uranium enrichment technology in 1999, Iranians have long insisted on retaining enrichment capacity, citing their Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) rights — an argument that the United States rejects.
Iranians did not give up on the principle of enrichment even after the United States and Israel decided to jointly strike Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025. Those strikes came after all enrichment activities had been halted due to the massive destruction at Iran’s underground facilities anyway.
Shortly after the end of the 12-day war, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, when asked about the future of uranium enrichment, retorted, “We cannot give up enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride.” Since then, several rounds of negotiations between Iran and the United States have been held with the help of first Oman and now Pakistan.
Foreign Policy’s “The Myth of Zero Enrichment” is the most important piece of Iran war analysis published by a major American foreign policy publication since the conflict began. It does not argue that Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium. It argues something more consequential for the diplomatic track: that demanding Iran abandon enrichment was always a myth, and that recognising this myth is the prerequisite for a deal that actually holds.
Why Zero Enrichment Was Always Unachievable
The NPT — the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — is the foundational international framework for nuclear governance. It has 191 state parties, including Iran. Article IV of the NPT explicitly states that all parties have “the inalienable right… to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” The treaty’s object is to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation — not to deny non-weapons states the right to civilian nuclear technology, including enrichment.
“We are a member of NPT and we have every right to enjoy peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment,” Araghchi told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan. “How we use this right is something related to us only. The enrichment is a sensitive part of our negotiation. The American team knows about it; they know our position, we know their position, and we have already exchanged our concerns, and I think a solution is achievable.”
The US position that Iran must abandon all enrichment requires Iran to give up a legal right it holds under an international treaty it has been a member of for decades. No other NPT signatory has been asked to do this as a condition of ending military hostilities.
Germany, Japan, South Korea, Brazil — all enrich uranium under IAEA safeguards. The zero enrichment demand is not a proliferation-prevention position; it is a maximalist political demand that the legal and diplomatic architecture of nonproliferation does not support.
What the War Was Actually Supposed to Achieve
The official US war objectives — as stated when Operation Roaring Lion and Operation Epic Fury launched February 28 — were to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile programme, dismantle its navy, sever its proxy network, and “ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.” Not zero enrichment. Not full dismantlement. Never obtains a nuclear weapon.
The gap between “never obtains a nuclear weapon” and “zero enrichment forever” is enormous. Dozens of countries enrich uranium and do not have nuclear weapons. The IAEA’s verification framework — Additional Protocol plus snap inspections — has proven effective at detecting undeclared nuclear activities.
A deal that produces genuine IAEA verification of Iranian enrichment limitations is operationally more effective at preventing weaponisation than a demand for zero enrichment that Iran will not accept.
Foreign Policy’s analysis argues that the war’s diplomatic impasse was always unnecessary — that the US entered the negotiations with a maximalist nuclear demand it could never achieve, refused the deals it could have gotten, and ended up with 81 days of war, $4.40+ gas, and no signed agreement. The 20-year suspension Trump signalled Tuesday is the first public acknowledgment that the zero-enrichment myth has been quietly abandoned.
The Historical Pattern
Since mastering uranium enrichment technology in 1999, Iranians have long insisted on retaining enrichment capacity, citing their NPT rights. Those strikes came after all enrichment activities had been halted due to the massive destruction at Iran’s underground facilities. Shortly after the end of the 12-day war, Araghchi said, “We cannot give up enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride.”
“A question of national pride.” That phrase is the key to understanding why every US demand for zero enrichment has produced impasse. Iran’s nuclear programme is not primarily a weapons programme at this point — it is a national achievement, a symbol of technological sovereignty, and a political identity marker for the Iranian state.
Demanding its abandonment is like demanding Japan abandon its automotive industry or Germany abandon its chemical industry: the demand conflates the capability with the specific misuse the capability could enable, ignoring that the capability itself has civilian value and national significance.
The 20-year suspension Trump signalled Tuesday treats this correctly: it suspends the activity while leaving the principle of the right intact. Iran can tell its domestic audience it has not surrendered the enrichment right — only agreed not to exercise it for 20 years. Trump can tell his domestic audience Iran’s enrichment is stopped for 20 years. Both are true. That is the architecture of a deal.
