Iran Experts Initiative Email Leak

In September 2023, Iran International and Semafor published thousands of leaked Iranian Foreign Ministry emails dating back to 2014, revealing the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI) — a covert influence operation run through the Ministry's think tank, the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS). The emails showed that Saeed Khatibzadeh, a Berlin-based diplomat, conceived the initiative in March 2014 and recruited a core group of Western-based Iranian academics — including Ariane Tabatabai, Dina Esfandiary, Ali Vaez, Adnan Tabatabai, Ellie Geranmayeh, and Rouzbeh Parsi — to promote Tehran's positions on the nuclear deal in Western media and policy circles. Mostafa Zahrani, then head of IPIS, oversaw the operation and served as the main liaison between the network and Mohammad Javad Zarif's Foreign Ministry. The leak revealed that members shared article drafts with Iranian officials before publication, received guidance on conference attendance, and that one member offered to ghostwrite op-eds for Tehran. At least three IEI members — Tabatabai, Vaez, and Esfandiary — later worked for or advised Robert Malley, the Biden administration's special envoy on Iran, who was himself placed on leave and investigated by the FBI in 2023. The revelations triggered a Pentagon security review of Tabatabai and congressional demands for investigation.