Corruption at the United Nations. Blowback against Chinese oil moves. Hysteria over the Dubai ports deal.

When members of Congress lash out at a foreign entity, its local lobbyists are inevitably caught in the crossfire.

The domestic lobbying industry makes constant headlines for its huge profits and brewing scandals, but the smaller and more secretive world of foreign-agent lobbying has begun attracting more than its share of attention.

As the challenges and unanswered questions facing foreign-agent lobbyists continue to bleed into the news and influence international affairs, lawmakers shaping the lobbying reform debate are finally poised to take up the issue.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was passed in 1938 to levy criminal penalties against Nazi propagandists exploiting the U.S. political process before World War II. The law forces strict reporting requirements on any individual paid by a foreign government or business for lobbying, public relations and advocacy within the United States.

A growing number of foreign-government-owned businesses, such as Dubai Ports World and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), are finding it in their best interests to have American lobbyists helping them gain a foothold here.

In 2005, 455 foreign-agent lobbyists had active registrations working with 661 foreign entities, according to Justice Department statistics.

“It is ridiculous to think that major [state-controlled] multinational corporations are not going to have to pay attention to the U.S. political process, and they would come up short if they didn’t,” said one lobbyist currently advising foreign governments.

Like many K Street insiders contacted for this article, the lobbyist asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the nature of foreign-agent lobbying without attracting unnecessary attention.

For foreign-agent lobbyists who thrive on image maintenance, former State Department and National Security Council staffer Robert Cabelly serves as a cautionary tale. Cabelly’s lobbying and PR firm, C/R International, has represented African nations struggling with the remnants of oppressive regimes, such as Angola and Equatorial Guinea, as well as Base Petroleum, a company linked to the late Nigerian military dictator Sani Abacha.

But it was Cabelly’s State Department-sanctioned contract to lobby for the Sudanese government, which the Bush administration has accused of genocide in the Darfur region, that led Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) to mount a one-man crusade against the lobbyist.

“Some things are inappropriate” in the world of foreign-agent lobbying, Wolf said in an interview, “but others are more so, particularly if it’s a former federal official. Doesn’t it shock people anymore?”

Wolf, as chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with power over the State Department’s purse strings, was uniquely positioned to pressure Foggy Bottom to cut off its support for Cabelly. While a spokesman for State initially protested that Cabelly “would provide a perspective on United States concerns and policy that would be useful in advancing the peace process and resolving the crisis in Darfur,” his $530,000 contract was terminated last month.

Few governments looking for lobbyists to smooth over questionable human-rights records have acted as publicly as Sudan.

Mark Edmond Clark, a former Council on Foreign Relations fellow, signed an $18,000, six-month contract to lobby for Iran on the “mission of international relations to the United Nations.” The contract ended last year.

The brutal ruling junta of Burma dropped its last foreign-agent lobbyists, the Republican PR firm DCI Group, in 2003. Neither Syria nor North Korea has an active foreign-agent lobbying contract, according to Justice Department records.

“I need to be able to go to sleep at night,” said Mark Tavlarides, a Van Scoyoc & Associates lobbyist who represents the Pakistan Embassy. “You lose your reputation once and that’s it. You represent a rogue state and, even if you follow the law, it does have an impact on your reputation.”

Another international furor over foreign lobbying occurred last year in the Philippines, when political foes of embattled President Gloria Arroyo pounced on her $75,000-per-month lobbying contract with Venable.

The Philippine Senate held Arroyo’s national-security adviser in contempt when he refused to answer questions about the hiring of lobbyists Jim Pitts and James Jatras, whose deal asks them to “secure grants or congressional earmarks for support of the Charter Change initiative” — an Arroyo-backed plan to replace the Philippine government with a parliamentary system.

“You have to take the political culture of each country as you find it,” said Jatras, who said he worked largely for general military assistance to Philippines, not Charter Change. “Each country has its own unique political culture and mode of political discourse. It seems part of that in the Philippines is people making unsubstantiated charges of the most exaggerated kind.”

The Arroyo government yanked Venable’s contract after it dominated Philippines media, but Jatras and Pitts have since negotiated a more flexible deal “generally promoting bilateral relations,” Jatras said. His foreign-agent lobbying work for India on its pending civilian nuclear agreement with the United States continues.

Rather than defending their own image in a foreign nation, lobbyists representing suspicious or even rogue states largely find themselves working to improve those governments’ reputations with Congress and the White House.

“Their job is hard, but at the same time also fairly easy,” said another lobbyist who previously worked with foreign agents. “They defend the image of the country they represent.”

But countries like Syria or North Korea also face the challenge of “finding quality lobbyists that are good at what they are doing and willing to take their money,” this lobbyist said.

Ambassador Patrick Theros, the former top U.S. diplomat in Qatar and a founding partner of Theros & Theros, last year worked as an adviser for Ayad Allawi, then interim prime minister of Iraq.

“The hardest lesson I learned is convincing a client who does not know the United States that the U.S. government is different from any other big Western governments and does not speak with one voice,” Theros said. “That’s almost impossible to sell. … As a government, we are incomprehensible to the outside world.”

Often foreign agent lobbyists have to fight the powers of strong grassroots movements. When the Armenian-American community urged Congress to adopt human-rights legislation concerning the Armenian genocide in Turkey, the Turkish government brought in the Livingston Group and its top hired gun, former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.), to block the bill. Still, the House International Relations Committee adopted the measure last year, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is considering it.

Another part of foreign agents’ challenge comes from perceptions that are triggered because they have to register with the Department of Justice’s criminal division.

“There is almost a negative connotation, like you are pulling something and using undue influence in some way,” said a lawyer who advises several foreign clients on legal and business matters.

For those not seasoned in the process, such as PR companies hired to work on advertising campaigns, registering under FARA comes with a stigma.

“You feel like, ‘Oh my God, we are not criminals,’” said a PR specialist who, after the Sept. 11 attacks, worked on an ad campaign for a strategic Middle Eastern ally.

One lobbyist working for a friendly Western government described the FARA process as “a nightmare” and was reluctant to go through the rigorous accounting.

Because the law’s reporting requirements are very strict — every means of communications, every meeting has to be detailed — some lobbyists actively seek exemptions or loopholes allowing them to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which asks for less broad disclosure.

Wolf said he plans to introduce amendments to the House’s lobbying reform bill, expected to come to the floor before the April recess, prohibiting former senior executive-branch officials from quickly profiting off their inside knowledge with foreign-agent deals.

Five other pending bills aim to bring greater transparency and disclosure to the foreign-agent system. Reps. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) and Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) have called for immediate online disclosure of foreign lobbying contracts, while Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) wants to increase the foreign lobbying “revolving door” moratorium to five years after leaving office and establish a foreign-agent clearinghouse at the Federal Election Commission that would prevent overseas cash from influencing U.S. elections.

Florida GOP Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart have introduced a bill that would block former members from lobbying on behalf of any nation designated a sponsor of terrorism by the State Department.

Kenneth Gross, a lobbying and ethics lawyer at Skadden Arps, echoed complaints from foreign agents that the criminal statute governing their behavior has a chilling effect. FARA should be revamped as a civil statute, similar to the Lobbying Disclosure Act, Gross said.

Van Scoyoc’s Tavlarides said foreign-agent lobbyists have nothing to fear from FARA transparency: “Our firm represents the government of Pakistan and we are proud to represent them. If you are doing the right thing and are interacting with foreign governments, you should not have to hide it.”

Those who violate the FARA regulations have to pay hefty fines and risk up to five years in prison. The Justice Department also can seek an injunction that would bar violators from acting as a foreign agent for a certain amount of time, according to department spokesman Bryan Sierra.