Data for: What the Iran-Iraq War tells us about the future of the Iran nuclear deal

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This is an Annotation for Transparent Inquiry (ATI) data project. The annotated article can be viewed on the publisher's website. You will need to use the Chrome browser with the Hypothesis extension installed to view the ATI annotations The data collected for this article came overwhelmingly from Persian-language primary and secondary sources. It also relied extensively on interviews with key Iranian decision-makers and the nuclear negotiating team and was supplemented by English-language sources and scholarship on a variety of issues. When generating the data, we placed great emphasis on the use of Persian-language sources, as the vast majority of scholarship and analysis on Iran’s nuclear program and national security policies relies almost exclusively on English-language secondary sources and press reports. One of the article’s primary goals was to demonstrate that neglect of Iranian sources and perspectives by many scholars and analysts has led to incomplete and inaccurate assessments of the Islamic Republic. As a result, our primary objective was to discuss the two most important security challenges Iran has faced in its contemporary history, the Iran-Iraq War and the nuclear file, by grounding our research in Iranian sources. The challenges involved in relying on this kind of data source are important to address. As discussed in the article, while official Iranian sources and statements, like those of other countries, should not be read uncritically or be taken at face value, they should also not be disregarded because of the particular perspectives they present. Unfortunately, the scholarship on Iran often disregards Iranian perspectives, partly due to the difficulty of gaining access to Iranian decision-makers, and partly because of the prevalent view that Iranian officials cannot be trusted. However, analyzing Iranian perspectives is vital to understanding Iran’s decision-making process and policy outputs, even if those perspectives are not always accurate. That is because they shed significant light on the Islamic Republic’s views of itself and of international affairs, and bridge key gaps in analysts’ understanding of Tehran’s interests, ambitions, and actions. Indeed, although scholars and analysts have long dismissed Iranian accounts as either the manifestation of its revolutionary ideology or as part of a face-saving strategy, we argue that there is much more to the narrative and that having a systematic appreciation of post-revolutionary Iran’s selfimage is vital to interpreting its policies and conduct. We took the opportunity presented by the ATI initiative to supplement our article in three main ways. First, we highlighted the importance of our Persian-language sources by adding longer excerpts than what we were able to include in the article in both Persian and English as well as additional analytical notes about those excerpts. Second, we highlighted the ongoing significance of the subjects we address in the article by updating several sections with developments that have taken place since the article’s publication. Indeed, the article appeared in the summer of 2017, when the JCPOA was entering its second year. Since then, a number of developments have tested, but ultimately confirmed, our argument. President Trump deployed harsh rhetoric against the JCPOA and refused to re-certify it in the fall of 2017. He did re-issue the sanctions waivers, but also issued an ultimatum that he would no longer do so unless the flaws in the deal were addressed. These developments have maintained a level of uncertainty surrounding the JCPOA’s future, thus continuously leading Iranian officials to assert that the United States cannot be trusted and that the country would be better off working to become selfreliant rather than depending on economic interdependence. We used the ATI toolkit to engage and react to these developments after the article’s publication. Lastly, we were able to provide context and more accuracy to claims made in the piece.