I’m thinking, oh, I dunno…. somebody who has extensive Middle Eastern ties who provided ten percent of the Blagojevich family household income last year and has the initials “Tony Rezko” might be given just a little input into this venture?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration wants to reopen an Illinois trade office in the Middle East, part of a new strategy to take advantage of business-friendly changes in the region.

Illinois had a trade office in Jerusalem for several years, but closed it last year. Now the administration plans to reopen an office, but perhaps not in Israel.

Even if the office remains there, it will pursue business aggressively with other countries, officials said, particularly oil-rich nations sending more investment money abroad.

“It’s hard to serve all of the Middle East from Israel, so we have been evaluating, should we try to have an office set up so that we can not only service Israel, but the rest of the Middle East?” said Jack Lavin, head of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Director Lavin, you may recall, once worked for Rezko.

I also don’t remember a big announcement about the closure of the Israeli office. Strange.