TEHRAN  Over the past year, conservatives here have often fulminated against the role played by Iranian exiles, who helped organize protests against the disputed 2009 presidential election across the globe.

But last week, the Iranian government paid for several hundred “highly placed” Iranians living abroad to come back for a three-day, all-expenses-paid trip. They were invited as part of a high-profile effort to repair Iran’s pariah image, win over some of the expatriates and, not least, draw some much-needed foreign capital to Iran’s troubled economy.

The guests were treated to a musical performance, a fawning speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  complete with oddly inappropriate wisecracks  and a trip to the tourist destination of their choice.

The event did not exactly go as planned.

The gathering, officially known as the Grand Conference of Iranians Living Abroad, is based on the idea that “lying media organizations outside the country with the aim of painting a black picture of the situation in Iran have created an incorrect impression such that some of our countrymen do not have a bright and clear picture of Iran,” as the conference organizer, Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh, said in April.