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That is partly because Iran consistently goes out of its ways to not only be bad by generally neutral standards, but especially the standards the Obama administration claimed to care about.
Rapproachment with Iran wasn't something that could be neatly simplified as 'de-escalating American hawkishness in the Middle East.' It involved things as over-the-top as flying literal planeloads of cash to a known state-sponsor of terrorism, who was involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq and made no promises to stop, for a deal even its adherents claimed would only result in Iran reaching breakout capability, i.e. what it would reach without it. You don't need to be 'hawkish' to think that that's not a particularly good play, and that was even as Iran was one of the most extreme global examples of the institutionalized homophobia (as in, literal stoning the gays) and gender discrimination. Not only was the later a flaw on the human rights front, Iran's sins were the sort of accusations that the Obama administration and the progressive-millenials were using as political cudgels in the domestic culture war at the same time.
Obama seeking rapproachment with Iran by fiat and trying to avoid Congressional scrutiny didn't come across as 'at last, reason will give peace a chance!'- it came across as a really short-sighted stupid bit of political hypocrisy, for which the primary beneficiary on the American side was Obama himself in terms of international laurels for giving the Europeans endorsement to trade with someone who at the time was helping blow up American soldiers and was in no way required to stop doing so.
I mean, take out the very subjective word "terrorism" and this is the same thing that the US is currently doing in Ukraine. It's not like the Iranians were blowing up Americans who were peacefully sitting on bases in the US. For true rapprochement to happen, generally both sides have to make compromises, not just one.
As for breakout capacity, I don't see why the US should try to stop Iran from building a nuke to begin with. Why should I care if they have a nuke?
Also, being belligerent towards Iran is pretty unlikely to get them to treat homosexuals better. Soft power could potentially do it. A full-on invasion could also do it, but that was not an option in 2008 and even if it was, it would have killed probably hundreds of thousands of people, so the tradeoff is questionable.
Because they can use it.
The (in my opinion, of course) tiny chance that they would use it in a first strike does not bother me. I have seen absolutely no reason to think that they are suicidal.
I guess they might use it if they get attacked first, but I wouldn't blame them for that and in any case, if they get nukes it is very unlikely that anyone will attack them.
The most important lesson of the Ukraine war is: get nukes, get nukes, get nukes. Countries that do not have nukes are not even really countries, they are just disputed zones fought over by countries that do have nukes.
This is why it's bad for the USA for Iran to have nukes.
Charitably, playing an M player game of thrones is easier than an M+1 player game. The USA doesn't even give nukes to it's non-nuclrar allies, and neither do the other nuclear powers.
I think that it is actually a better thing for the people of the US that the USA empire comes to an end, and a nuclear-power Iran would be a good step forward in that direction.
I'm pretty skeptical of this.
If you believe this, then there is a laundry list of less powerful nations we might theoretically swap places with. Which would you choose?
I have no idea what relevance this has to my point. Why would the US be swapping places with anybody?
It's a hypothetical. you proposed reducing the USA's global power by calling for an end to the American empire.
This is directly related to my post, where I asked you to consider what life would be like for the citizens of a nation with much diminished power relative to the USA today--- of which there are many real world examples you can choose from.
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