Pakistani Ambassador hosted fundraiser for neocon think-tank

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."

Though the dinner appeared in the paper and online conference programs, FDD president Cliff May insisted that the two were unrelated: "The dinner was separate from the conference but it coincided with the conference. Why? Because many friends of FDD were in town for the conference," he wrote in an e-mail to the Middle East Channel. May conceded that his staff may have failed to notify the Pakistani embassy that the group was in the middle of hosting the conference.

At the "Washington Forum," as the conference was called, fellows and scholars from FDD advocated for escalating measures against the Islamic Republic, ranging from "ratcheting up" sanctions and pressure to U.S. support for regime change and even military strikes against Iran. "Pakistan and Iran are brotherly countries and neighboring countries, brotherly Muslim countries," said Gardezi, citing cooperation between the two countries on a pipeline project. "Anything against Iran is unthinkable for us."