Gary Sick, an official in the Carter and Reagan Administration and now a leading Iran analyst based at Columbia University, critiques Iranian foreign and nuclear policy "from the inside", noting the motivations from the Islamic Republic's domestic concerns and its recent history with the United States and in the Middle East.
A take-away line, "Iran is not making a mad dash for the bomb. It has the capacity, but it is not doing it", leads Sick to chide the West over its current negotiating position, "We're never going to make them go back to zero capacity."