Paul R. Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until his retirement in 2005,[15] described the book in a Middle East Policy Council journal review as "an admirably thorough treatment" of the Iranian nuclear program and the perception of it and response to it by Israeli and American policymakers.[16] He wrote that the book's two most significant contributions are "as an overall history of the understanding, or misunderstanding, of the Iranian program" and its debunking of "the conventional wisdom that Iran is set on getting nuclear weapons", and noted Porter's thorough examination and assessment of both.[16] Pillar said that Porter was "much less convincing", however, when he failed to support his repetition of the old cliché that to maintain their funding levels, almost all of the American security establishment was exaggerating the actual threat of weapons proliferation.[16] He also noted that Porter's "effort to spread attributions of bias around very broadly" resulted in a minimization of the actual political differences of the various presidential administrations, especially the "sharp" distinction between the George W. Bush and Barack Obama policies.[16]