Republicans Damage Foreign Policy for Money

Few places on earth create more foreign policy challenges for the than Pakistan.  It is a nuclear state with an unstable government, a history of aiding nuclear proliferation, intense hostility with India, an ally, national interests over Afghanistan that differ from ours, a history of support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and more.   With all that, the last thing we need is an embarrassing incident.  Nevertheless, Republicans ignored all this when they duped Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US into hosting a fund-raiser without telling him that’s what it was.

At Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel, Ali Gharib reports, “The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. hosted a fundraiser at his residence for a neoconservative D.C. think-tank, which solicited donations of $5,000 for invitations to the event”:

But the think-tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), didn’t bother to tell the Pakistani embassy that the event was a fundraiser or that it was sandwiched in the middle of a two-and-a-half day conference on “Countering the Iranian Threat” put on by the group.

“We didn’t know at all that they have done this fundraising,” Imran Gardezi, a spokesperson for the Pakistani embassy, told the Middle East Channel. “And neither did they share with us that they would be doing this conference. Very frankly, we didn’t know about this conference.”

FDD’s president Cliff May — who, like his FDD colleague Reuel Marc Gerecht, is a strident advocate of aggressive action [propaganda sheet delinked] against Iran — denied that the event was a fundraiser, telling Gharib that “friends and supporters” were invited, and that there was no “quid-pro-quo” between the $5,000 donation and invitation to the dinner.

“I invited FDD donors at or above the $5,000 level to the event,” May wrote in a follow-up interview by e-mail. “Others friends of FDD were invited — at my discretion. Several FDD staff members were invited as well.”

The conference’s schedule reads [Neocons delinked]:

7:00 pm

Dinner at the residence of one

of Washington’s noteworthy Ambassadors

(Closed to Media)

(Minimum $5,000 gift required. Contribute here [Neocons delinked], or for more information on becoming a donor, please contact [e-mail of FDD staffer removed])

… [emphasis original][emphasis added]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

The Republican did what Republicans do when they open their mouths.  He lied.  This stunt was particularly devious and harmful to ongoing relations with Pakistan.