JTA: Olmert probe gag order to be lifted tonight.

Update: A reader who scans the Hebrew language press and Internet chats notes: "Today an ultra-orthodox magazine published a 'fictional' description of an Israeli politician and how they were corrupt. If the 'fictional' account is close to reality, which we'll know soon enough, it seems like Olmert was involved in bribery and money laundering for building permits, favors, etc. Apparently they are still discussing whether to remove the gag order or not."

He adds: "Gag order could be over in a few minutes.... One of the Israeli TV stations is broadcasting something special in a few minutes."

Update II: Ha'aretz reports that Olmert used the prime minister's office to .... further his wife's art career.

Update III: Gag order partially lifted, more here.

The reader adds:

1. Uri Messer, Olmert's lawyer and confidant, is apparently a state witness. He is probably the key to everything. He is being described as having been in a "difficult emotional state" during the past few weeks.

2. Morris Talansky was cooperative with the police.

3. Shula Zaken, who ran Olmert's office, is not being very cooperative.

4. One newspaper hinted that Talansky is just the tip of the iceberg. Very little of the money that he passed to Olmert was his own, rather he was the messenger, and once we find out who gave him money to hand over to Olmert, we'll see the larger picture. Talansky isn't that wealthy, compared to others, rather he was good at getting others to give their money. If Talansky is the entire story, this isn't the earthquake that it is being described as.

5. The gag order was only removed partially. There is still a lot that was not permitted to be told.

Former NSC aide comments on Clinton, "Dual Containment," and HRC's 'Obliterate Iran' remarks:

...The "new defensive alliance" with Arab states of the Middle East that Sen. Clinton has been proposing in the past few weeks is so similar to the anti-Iran alliance that the Bush administration has been trying to sell to the Sunni Arab states (with Israel as a silent partner), that I must admit I cannot see the difference. In fact, the "Bush Doctrine" toward Iran and the Arab states was nothing but a continuation of the "Clinton-Indyk Doctrine" that preceded it, and it now appears that if Hillary should win the presidency, we will come full circle back to Clinton-Indyk redux. ...

A group of Senators on the Foreign Relations committee has written the White House expressing concern over US nuclear cooperation with Moscow in light of Russian assistance to Iran's nuclear program. Letter here (.pdf).

WP: FBI backs off national security letter after lawsuit: "The FBI has withdrawn a secret administrative order seeking the name, address and online activity of a patron of the Internet Archive after the San Francisco-based digital library filed suit to block the action. It is one of only three known instances in which the FBI has backed off from such a data demand, known as a 'national security letter,' or NSL, which is not subject to judicial approval and whose recipient is barred from disclosing the order's existence. ... because of the gag order provision, the public has little way to know about them. Their use soared after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, when Congress relaxed the standard for their issuance. FBI officials now issue about 50,000 such orders a year."

NYT:

... The [Lebanese] government said Tuesday that it would act against a private telephone network operated by Hezbollah in south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut and accused the militant group of placing several spy cameras on a road outside the airport to monitor pro-government officials. The cabinet also dismissed the airport’s director of security, a figure close to Hezbollah.

The telephone network was mainly used for communication between Hezbollah members during the 2006 July war with Israel, and Hezbollah officials were quoted in local newspapers as saying that they would consider anyone who interfered with the network an Israeli spy....

Via TPMMuckraker's Paul Kiel, Government Executive reports the scope of the FBI investigation into possible obstruction of justice by the office of special counsel and its head Scott Bloch is more extensive than previously thought:

But OSC employees said the grand jury subpoenas seek a wide range of information that goes beyond Bloch's deletion of computer files or treatment of agency employees.

Investigators have demanded all files on OSC's investigation last year into allegations of improper political activity by Lurita Doan, the former head of the General Services Administration, who was forced to resign last week by the White House.

In addition, investigators demanded documents related to OSC's investigation into allegations that Secretary of State Rice used federal resources to travel to campaign appearances supporting President Bush's re-election in 2004. Bloch's office closed the case, finding no violation by Rice.

NYT: British court rules that MEK is not a terrorist group.

Current Books Blog. Kevin Drum, to the rescue, writes a review round up of several current foreign policy books whose authors I have promised to try to write about, but have not yet had a chance. Kevin:

Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein. This is a followup to Rick's phenomenal first book, Before the Storm, which chronicled Barry Goldwater's presidential run in 1964 and the birth of movement conservatism.

Nixonland is, for obvious reasons, a darker book than Before the Storm, and one that's narrated with less sympathy toward its subject, but it's really a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what happened to both Democrats and Republicans during the 60s and how our country managed to change so dramatically in the space of less than a decade. Before I read Nixonland, I think I'd pretty much blotted out my memory of the 1972 Democratic convention (with good reason), but now it's fresh in my mind and scaring the hell out of me. Thanks, Rick. I hope 2008 isn't a repeat. Nixonland's official release date is next Tuesday. [...]

U.S. vs. Them, by Peter Scoblic. This is another book in the same vein as the first two: a historical look at conservatism and its intersection with liberalism over the past half century. Where Teles focuses on law and Perlstein focuses on domestic turmoil, Scoblic focuses on foreign affairs.

Nickel summary: post-9/11 neoconservatives aren't really hawking anything all that new. American conservatives since World War II have always been militaristic and nationalistic, they've always hated the idea of wasting ink on treaties with other countries, and they've always been obsessed with total military superiority. For them, international affairs is a decidedly zero sum game, and George Bush is just the apotheosis of this belief system, not something truly new and different. The book's website is here; you can read the introduction here.

Heads in the Sand, by Matt Yglesias. Matt has taken on a pretty tough task in this book: trying to convince us that good 'ol liberal internationalism is the best foreign policy bet we have to deal with global terrorism and other threats over the next few decades.

This is a decidedly unsexy position to take (there's a funny section toward the end where he talks about desperate liberal efforts to rebadge liberal internationalism just to make it sound newer and more exciting than it is), but it has the virtue of being essentially correct. The final chapter, "In with the Old," is as good a brief for liberal internationalism as I've read recently. ...

NY Post:

The Long Island financier at the center of a scandal that could topple Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert started raising money for the embattled politician nearly a decade ago, The Post has learned.

Morris Talansky, a millionaire entrepreneur from Woodmere, served as treasurer for the New Jerusalem Foundation, a charity Olmert founded in 1999 as mayor of the city. ...

The nonprofit New Jerusalem Foundation was set up as an alternative to the long-established Jerusalem Foundation, which did not operate directly under mayoral control.

Political rivals long accused Olmert of using its funds for political purposes instead of helping local charities. ...

While Talansky has donated to both Democratic and Republican candidates over the years, the New Jerusalem Fund has been led since its founding in 1992 by right-wing politicians, first by Olmert himself and subsequently by current Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky. The foundation raises approximately $4 million to $5 million annually, according to an official involved in fundraising for Israeli causes, and centers its efforts on soliciting donations from Evangelical Christians.

... The fund-raising in 1999 that prompted the investigation into Mr. Olmert also led to campaign finance charges against people close to Mr. Sharon. His son, Omri Sharon, is serving a prison term as a result of that case. [...]

A registered Democrat, Mr. Talansky has donated to many American candidates on both sides of the aisle. He gave President Bush $1,000 in 2003, and was a generous donor to Rudolph W. Giuliani in 2000. Among his Democratic beneficiaries have been President Bill Clinton in 1995; Thomas S. Foley, then the House speaker, in 1994; and Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1992. ...

The rabbi discounted one theory making the rounds in Israel that his cousin might be embroiled in a political effort to topple the centrist Israeli prime minister. “He’s no extremist in any way,” said Rabbi Talansky. ...

Jeff Stein reports that his CQ story on 400 missing State Department laptops prompted their being found overnight:

The State Department says it has found the 400 laptops that CQ reported were unaccounted for last week.

A senior official in the department’s Office of the Inspector General, speaking only on a not-for-attribution basis, acknowledged that managers in the Diplomatic Security service had lost track of the computers, which are destined for friendly foreign police services.

But he said that they were located “within 24 hours” after CQ reported them missing over the weekend. ...

"Special Groups" Useful Fiction? Dr. iRack at Abu M:

The notion of "special groups"--JAM factions that supposedly have close ties to Iran's Quds force--is, in many respects, a useful fiction. Now there is no doubt in Dr. iRack's mind that there are some JAM elements that deserve the title, but the U.S. military has made a habit of describing all JAMsters who violate the "freeze" on armed activities declared by Moqtada al-Sadr last August as "special groups." In many respects, this is useful to provide slack in the system and prevent the Sadr ceasefire from completely shattering under strain. Yet it also creates a false impression that the majority of JAMsters fighting U.S. forces take their orders directly from the mullahs in Iran (much as the use of the label "Al Qaeda in Iraq" as a catch all term for a disparate and very loosely aligned collection Sunni insurgent groups creates the false impression that most Sunni insurgents take their orders from Bin Laden or the foreign leadership of AQI). ...

Two Posts: Syriana (the Rendon Group version):

...Yesterday, according to a Washington source with an ear on the Levant, the Rendon Group, a government consulting group which worked closely with Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, was asked to organize a "narrow focus discussion group" to examine the case of Badran Turki Hishan Al Mazidih. The Syria-based Al Mazidih, "also known as Abu Ghadiyah, runs the [Al Qaeda in Iraq] facilitation network, which controls the flow of money, weapons, terrorists, and other resources through Syria into Iraq," the Treasury Department said in a February press release announcing his designation as a terrorist. [...]

The group assembled by Rendon yesterday consisted of Defense, State Department and Intelligence analysts, according to this source. They concluded, he said, "that the US needed to send a message requesting Damascus' assistance on Abu Ghadiyah. But it should not be seen by Damascus as an American message." Ideas were floated to ask the Turks, or the French to play the intermediary. "A request will be made to the Iraqis to ask the Syrians for Abu Ghadiya's extradition," he says. ...

A Washington Middle East hand who did not want his name used writes:

... The Feltman-Mustapha discussion had nothing to do with a potential deal and everything to do with the US government communicating to the Syrian one the elements it has about the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor. [...] Any opening to or quid pro quo with Syria for the current administration will be conditioned on tangible positive steps on Lebanon. I suspect that the next administration, even a Democratic one, will have essentially the same policy, but with arguably a lower priority.

The substance of the US position toward talks is simple: you want to do it, do it. But we are not sitting at the table unless we have something tangible on Lebanon. We are not risking our multilateral policy, consensus with Europeans and Arabs, credibility, alliances, geopolitical interests to test the improbable proposition that talking to Syria will lure it from Iran, which is Israel’s primary goal.

What is important to understand is that in the 1990s, Syria would go through the US to get to Israel and Israel would go through the US to get to Syria.

Today, roles have changed. Syria hopes to bring the US to the table by calling for a resumption of talks. Israel is worried that its options for dealing with Iran are shrinking. The last card is talking to the Syrians. Also the problems on the Palestinian track make the Syrian one more appealing in tactical terms.

This whole peace negotiations business is a smoke-screen for much different calculations on the Syrian and Israeli sides.

And "Happy Sixtieth. Sorry about that Indictment."

Talk about awkward timing. Next week, President Bush heads to Israel to mark that country's sixtieth anniversary celebrations. But as Israeli media have reported this week, a rapidly moving corruption investigation has put the political future of Bush's chief interlocutor there, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, in jeopardy. [...]

Fevered speculation aside, Olmert could very well come out of the whole thing ultimately unscathed. Israeli political life has a kind of Italian drama and turmoil to it, and yet key players seem to have a decades long persistence. ...

WSJ/NPR: FBI raids home, office of special counsel chief Scott Bloch. "... Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Bloch during the course of a 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office. Bloch's agency is typically involved in senstive investigations of alleged government wrongdoing. ... The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mr. Bloch had used 'Geeks on Call,' an outside computer-service firm, to erase his computer and those of two former staff members in December 2006. (See related article.)"

" ... Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In the Journal story, Mr. Bloch confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer. He said the erasures didn't delete any files related to the inquiry."

Leonard Spector and Avner Cohen in the LAT: After overestimating the Iraq threat, U.S. intelligence agencies are now dangerously underestimating Syria and Iran.

NY Post:

A Long Island mogul is at the center of a sensational bribery scandal that could bring down embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, The Post has learned.

Millionaire financier Morris Talansky - who runs an investment firm out of his tony home in Woodmere - allegedly passed money to Olmert while the politician was mayor of Jerusalem in the '90s, sources said.

In a highly unusual move, Israeli authorities have barred the country's media from publishing Talansky's name - revealed now in The Post - saying it could hamper their investigation. Israeli media has referred only to the involvement of an "American businessman."

Talansky is apparently set to sing to Israeli authorities about his alleged role in the scheme, sources said.

"It looks serious, and it looks like they have a state witness" in Talansky, one source said.

Talansky - a philanthropist and political contributor to everyone from Rudy Giuliani to Bill Clinton - is in Jerusalem, where he has an apartment, preparing to head to a closed-door court hearing as early as today, sources said.

The 75-year-old was earlier questioned about the alleged scheme almost immediately after arriving in the country for Passover, and he implicated Olmert, sources have said.

It was unclear what the alleged payments to Olmert were for, but sources said they involved hefty amounts of cash.

Talansky repeatedly appears - sometimes under the nickname "The Laundry Man" - in the logs of financial dealings kept by Olmert's longtime aide, Shula Zakan, a source said.

Olmert was grilled by investigators Friday. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. ...

NYT: Iran halts talks with the U.S. on Iraq. Dr. iRack parses other sources and concludes the US halted the talks before the Iranians did.

Ha'aretz: Major development may lead to indictment in Olmert probe.

AbdulAziz Hakim's son Mohsen Hakim speaks with the LAT from his Tehran offices about Iran, Iraq, and the US. "The many problems between Iran and Iraq and between Iran and U.S. should be settled through consultation and negotiations. Nothing can be solved by openly and publicly accusing each other of interference."

Dr. iRack unpacks the Michael Gordon piece conveying the outlines of the forthcoming MNF-I case that Hezbollah is training militants in Iraq. A commenter at the post notes 1) the Gordon piece strikingly doesn't tell us WHICH militia the captured Shiite militants who had trained in Iran belonged to. and 2) noted that the original MEK reports on Iran training Iraq emphasized or focused not only on JAM but on ISCI/Badr Brigades, "i.e. Team Cheney Baghdad outlet," a friend observes.

More on the Iraqi government spokesman taking a second pass under American pressure on the Iraq in Iraq case from the WP:

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh called reporters late Sunday night to clarify remarks he made at a news conference earlier in the day, when he appeared to say that there was no hard evidence that Iran was allowing weapons to come into Iraq. Dabbagh said his comments had been misinterpreted.

"There is an interference and evidence that they have interfered in Iraqi affairs," Dabbagh said in an interview arranged by a U.S. official. When asked how he would characterize the proof that Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, he said: "It is a concrete evidence."

The U.S. government has long accused Iran of providing the powerful roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators to Shiite militiamen who attack American troops. Iran has denied any such role.

Dabbagh said that after Maliki launched an offensive last month in the southern city of Basra, weapons were found that were clearly produced in Iran.

"The truth came out; there is evidence of Iranian weapons in Iraq," he said. "Now we need to document who sent them."

Dabbagh said the high-level committee was formed three days ago and includes officials from the Interior and Defense Ministries.

Update: Interesting, from the AP:

A former Iranian president has said that exporting violence to other countries is "treason" against Islam and Iran's 1979 revolution, an apparent accusation that the country's hard-line rulers are engineering unrest abroad.

Mohammad Khatami, a reformist and popular intellectual, made no mention of U.S. and Iraqi accusations that Iran is arming and training Shiite extremists in neighboring Iraq. But he said Iran should avoid actions that give it a bad image.

Engineering violence in other countries would be contrary to the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khatami said.

"What did Imam (Khomeini) want and what did he mean by 'exporting the revolution'? Taking up arms and causing explosions in other countries and establishing groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? Imam was strongly opposed to these behaviors," Khatami told students in northern Iran on Friday.

"This is the biggest treason to Islam and the revolution."

Khatami's remarks were published by the daily Kargozaran Saturday and also posted on the Web site of a pro-democracy foundation he heads. ...

NYT: Israeli political crisis overshadows Rice's trip.

FLC: "The Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near Eastern Affairs Jeff Feltman & Syria's Ambassador Imad Mustapha met for just over 2 hours in Foggy Bottom ...Meeting details to come."

Update from FLC: "Amb. Mustapha was not available for 'comments' as he left on a flight to Damascus hours after the meeting. The meeting in itself is important for the simple fact that it took place (such meetings were extremely scarce if not nonexistent ...) , was unusually long for a simple "you are this and we are that", and it happened against a background of promising and/or imminently precarious regional atmospherics ..."

Go read MJ Rosenberg.

Time: Gen. Sanchez on Rumsfeld's Operation CYA:

... After the meeting ended, I remember walking out of the Pentagon shaking my head and wondering how in the world Rumsfeld could have expected me to believe him. Everybody knew that CENTCOM had issued orders to drawdown the forces. The Department of Defense had printed public affairs guidance for how the military should answer press queries about the redeployment. There were victory parades being planned. And in mid-May 2003, Rumsfeld himself had sent out some of his famous "snowflake" memorandums to Gen. Franks asking how the general was going to redeploy all the forces in Kuwait. The Secretary knew. Everybody knew.

So what was Rumsfeld doing? Nineteen months earlier, in September 2004, when it was clearly established in the Fay-Jones report that CJTF-7 was never adequately manned, he called me in from Europe and claimed ignorance, "I didn't know about it," he said. "How could this happen? Why didn't you tell somebody about it?"

Now, he had done exactly the same thing, only this time he had prepared a written memorandum documenting his denials. So it was clearly a pattern on the Secretary's part, and now I recognized it. Bring in the top-level leaders. Profess total ignorance. Ask why he had not been informed. Try to establish that others were screwing things up. Have witnesses in the room to verify his denials. Put it in writing. In essence, Rumsfeld was covering his rear. He was setting up his chain of denials should his actions ever be questioned. And worse yet, in my mind, he was attempting to level all the blame on his generals. ...

Olmert tenure jeopardized in corruption probe? Ha'aretz: "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was questioned under caution by police on Friday in connection to a new corruption affair, after which a senior legal source was quoted on Channel 1 as saying, 'Olmert is in a grave situation, it is doubtful whether he will be able to continue to hold his position.'"

Friday Afternoon RumInt. Andrew Cockburn: "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, 'unprecedented in its scope.'" Asked if this sounded credible, a Hill source indicated no, it does not.

Bob Dreyfuss: Letter from Iran.

The Forward: US appears to drop veto on Israel-Syria talks.