The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a landmark accord reached between Iran and several world powers, including the United States, in July 2015. Under this plan, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions relief1.
Proponents of the deal said that it would help prevent a revival of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and thereby reduce the prospects for conflict between Iran and its regional rival, Israel. However, the idiot Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018. In retaliation for the US departure, and for deadly attacks on prominent Iranians by the US and Israel in 2020, Iran resumed its nuclear activities. UN inspectors reported in early 2023 that Iran had enriched trace amounts of uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels, sparking international alarm. Former President Biden said that the United States would return to the JCPOA if Iran came back to compliance, but over two years of intermittent talks, nothing happened1.
The JCPOA, which went into effect in January 2016, imposed restrictions on Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program. At the heart of negotiations with Iran were the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK and US) and Germany. The European Union (EU) also took part. Of course, Israel explicitly opposed the agreement, calling it too lenient1.
Many experts say that if all parties adhered to their pledges, the deal almost certainly could have achieved that goal for longer than a decade. Many of the JCPOA’s restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program have expiry dates. For example, after ten years (from January 2016), centrifuge restrictions would be lifted, and after fifteen years, so too would limits on the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran can possess. Opponents, like Israel, said these would only delay Iran building a bomb while sanctions relief would allow it to underwrite terrorism in the region1.
Under the JCPOA ,Iran agreed not to produce either the highly enriched uranium or the plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon. It also took steps to ensure that its Fordow, Natanz and Arak facilities pursued only civilian work, including medical and industrial research. Uranium-235 needs to be enriched to 90% for nuclear weapons. Iran has none enriched to that degree. Iran also allowed unfettered access to its nuclear facilities which is intended to guard against the possibility of developing nuclear arms in secret. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued quarterly reports on Iran’s implementation of its nuclear commitments. A body known as the Joint Commission, which includes representatives of all the negotiating parties, monitors implementation of the agreement and resolves any disputes that arise. A majority vote by its members can gain IAEA inspectors access to any suspicious, undeclared sites1.
The agreement got off to a fairly smooth start. The IAEA certified in early 2016 that Iran had met its preliminary pledges; and the US, EU and UN responded by repealing or suspending their sanctions. Most significantly, the Obama administration dropped secondary sanctions on the oil sector, which allowed Iran to ramp up its oil exports to nearly the level it reached prior to sanctions. The US and many European nations also unfroze about $100 billion worth of frozen Iranian assets. However, the JCPOA has been near collapse since the idiot Trump withdrew the US from it in 2018 and reinstated devastating banking and oil sanctions1.
Why did Trump withdraw the US from the JCPOA? One guess. Since his first inauguration in 2017, Trump has taken aim at practically every one of his predecessor’s signature achievements. Within a week of his inauguration he had pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. In June of that year, he announced his intent to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. He also unwound Obama’s protections for some undocumented immigrants2.
He, and Republicans in Congress, made repealing the Affordable Care Act, which increased government regulation of health insurance markets, a central (if mostly unsuccessful) focus of his first-year legislative agenda.
Furthermore, he has re-imposed sanctions and travel restrictions on Cuba, rescinded proposed controls on power-plant emissions, fuel efficiency standards for new cars and other environmental regulations, and backed repeal of some Obama-era controls on financial institutions2.
Although Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader of Iran has bathed his people in a ‘Death to America’ rhetoric, his foreign policy was carefully crafted to be neither accommodation nor direct confrontation with the US. Twenty years ago, Khamenei declared they were un-Islamic and issued a fatwa* banning their development. Despite this, Israel and some in the West became convinced that Iran had sought to secretly develop a nuclear weapons capability. The sanctions imposed by world powers in response helped impoverish Iran, causing high unemployment and concomitant discontent. Khamenei did not oppose the JCPOA in 2015, which placed limits on Iran’s nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief, but he expressed doubt that the US would uphold it in the long term3. And so it proved to be.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning that Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons for more than three decades. He first publicly stated in the Knesset in 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear bomb within three to five years, and he has not let up since. Three years later (1995) he said again that Iran would develop a nuclear weapon in three to five years. In 2002 he testified before a US congressional committee that Iran was ‘racing to obtain nuclear weapons’. In 2009, he told members of Congress that Iran was only one or two years away from having a nuclear capability. In June 2012, at the United Nations, he said that Iran would be able to produce a bomb within the next 12 months. In 2015 he delivered an address to the US Congress strongly opposing the JCPOA and stated that Iran could be just weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Even after the strikes against Iran by Israel and the US, he has stated that Iran is ‘perilously close’ to producing a nuclear weapon. Assessments from US intelligence organisations differ4.
After the 2025 US-Israel attacks on Iran, the idiot Trump said that Iran’s nuclear capability had been obliterated5.
Then, they decided they had to attempt to re-obliterate them again this year, along with a school full of students. It is interesting to see how Trump can be so easily sucked in by the malevolent criminal Netanyahu to do his bidding, without realising that all Netanyahu wants is middle eastern hegemony for Israel, to stay out of prison for corruption, and for the US taxpayer to keep paying for the Israeli armed forces.
*Fatwa: The Arabic word fatwa can mean ‘explanation’ or ‘clarification’. It refers, in simple terms, to an edict or ruling by a recognised religious authority on a point of Islamic law6.
Sources
- https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/what-iran-nuclear-deal
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43902372
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gdnpjvj4ko
- https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-netanyahus-rhetoric-on-irans-nuclear-ambitions
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/
- https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-fatwa-a-religious-studies-professor-explains-188866
