The Pentagon promotes the official who allegedly leaked Israel's counter-offensive plans against Iran

The Pentagon promoted Ariane Tabatabai, an official who is suspected of having a relationship with the Iranian regime and of having leaked U.S. intelligence information about a possible Israeli counteroffensive against Iran after the country's army attacked Israel with nearly 200 ballistic missiles.

Tabatabai, who previously served as chief of staff to the undersecretary of defense, is now deputy assistant secretary of defense in the office of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, POLITICO revealed. In her new position, the Iranian-American official will head the force education and training division.

POLITICO added that Tabatabai was offered the promotion last September.

She was promoted amid an FBI investigation into the aorementioned classified documents leak, which allegedly revealed Israel's plan to launch its counteroffensive against Iran after the Iranian attack in October.

Sky News Arabia was the media outlet that revealed Tabatabai's alleged responsibility for the leak. However, Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, recently stated that the official is not under investigation and that the inquiry is in its early stages.

The leak allegedly postponed Israel's counteroffensive

In addition, the British newspaper The Times revealed that the leak of classified Pentagon documents has postponed the Israeli counteroffensive against Iran.

The classified documents included details of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) plans to launch a ballistic missile offensive against Iran, which resulted in Tehran being better able to prepare for the attack, forcing the Israelis to change their strategy and certain components of the response, Jewish state intelligence sources said, according to a Ynet report.

Who is Ariane Tabatabai?

Tabatabai was raised in Tehran. She majored in international geopolitical studies. Even before she began working for the U.S. administration, she advocated to negotiate with the Iranian regime rather than have a direct confrontation.

When she went to work for the State Department, she was hired to work on Biden's special envoy team for Iran. She also worked for negotiator Robert Malley. Malley was removed from her position when a journalistic investigation focused on her relationship with Iran.

Tabatabai is still employed with the federal government. The journalistic investigations focused on her membership in an informal group of intellectuals and thinkers whose views align with the Iranian regime called Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), a program developed by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the aim of improving Iran’s public relations.

Tabatabai had spoken with members of the Islamist government. The adviser has not provided comments to the media about the inquiries from Semafor and Iran International. However, other writers who are also on the alleged IEI lists have made some statements claiming that this program is an outreach opportunity and not an intelligence operation.