"Iran has every incentive to go ahead with this…" said Sick, who served on the US National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and is now a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute.
The deal finalized early Tuesday wrapped up two years of negotiations to guarantee the peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran has agreed to limit the level of uranium enrichment below weapons grade and cut the number of centrifuges required.
Sick, who advised President Jimmy Carter during the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the 1979-1981 hostage crisis, said that Iran has provided evidence that it will keep its word in the form of a nuclear stockpile reduction agreed upon two years ago and proved to have been carried out in full.
"Iran has been meticulous in observing every one of its obligations, and it continued with very serious negotiations throughout that period of time," Sick said.
Sick added that it was remarkable for Iran, which has been isolated from the rest of the world for years, to face off all the major powers in "excruciating" two-year talks and bring them to a successful conclusion. He said he found it very difficult to believe that Tehran would go through this difficult process unless it intended to make good on its promises.
"I think there is no reason, based on the recent history of the negotiations and of Iran’s past performance, to doubt that Iran will go ahead and keep its word. So yes, I think it is a viable agreement," he argued.
Sick pointed out that two years ago expert evidence had claimed that Iran was "within weeks" of being able to have enough nuclear material to build a bomb but did not do it, even though it had no limitation on uranium enrichment capabilities or centrifuges. So to think that Tehran has falsely accepted a whole series of restrictions only to ignore them is an example of "fantastic thinking," he said.
"Somehow the argument that 10-15 years from now they will go back and do what they did not do two years ago is a little bit difficult to make," Sick said.
Under the final nuclear agreement, Iran will under no circumstances seek to develop or acquire a nuclear weapon. Critics in the United States and Israel claim that lifting the sanctions will create favorable economic conditions for Tehran to pursue a nuclear bomb in the future.
