A new Pentagon study group called the Iran Directorate has surfaced in recent media reports, drawing analogies to now disbanded (and discredited) Office of Special Plans which pushed for war on Iraq. An Oct. 6 analysis by Daniel Schulman in Mother Jones calls the Directorate and figures around it the "Whack Iran" lobby, naming Elizabeth Cheney (the VP's daughter); prominent neocons David Wurmser, Abram Shulsky, Elliott Abrams and Michael Ledeen; and Iranian arms dealder Manucher Ghorbanifar. The old nuclear ultra-hawk think thank, the Committee on the Present Danger, has apparently also been revived to stump for war on Iran. A Sept. 30 account in Newsday widely quoted Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who openly takes pot-shots at the State Department pragmatists who are slowing the war drive:

It seems that hubristic neocons, with their ambitions to dismantle Iraq (and, eventually, the rest of the Arab world) are moving in for the kill, posing it as a solution to the sectarian and ethnic strife their own policies unleashed. Will the State Department pragmatists prevail in stopping them, and somehow shoring up a centralized Iraq with Baghdad as its capital, the traditional Anglo-American strategy for stability-by-proxy in the region? From the London Times, Oct. 8, link and emphasis added:

Amid the internecine Palestinian violence now rocking Gaza comes a distrubing report from Israel's YNet Oct. 8 that an entity calling itself the Islamic Swords of Justice, said to be the Palestinian wing of al-Qaeda, shot up and set fire to an Internet cafe in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip, causing massive damage. A communique said the attack was "part of a series of actions aimed at fighting corruption and the corrupt. During the holy month of Ramadan, our fighters have started operating on the holy land and in the early morning placed a bomb weighing ten kilograms (22 pounds) next to the coffee shop, ridden with corruption and characteristic of the unethical activities that have increased in recent days. Jihad fighters detonated the bomb as a message to all the corrupt people."

Sarah Ferguson writes for the Village Voice, Oct. 5:

Rallies Today: World Can't Wait—for What?

Call them the popular front to MoveOn.org's dogged efforts to defeat Republicans at the ballot box this November.

Some 100 Yucatan state riot police attacked a group of peasants at the ejido (collective farm) of Oxcum Oct. 6, lands which the state government is seeking to buy for a new ariport servicing Merida, the capital and major tourist hub. Four ejiditarios were arrested, and several men, women and elders beaten by the police. Some ejido leaders had apparently taken money in return for the lands, but those continuing to occupy the tract call the sale illegal. (La Otra Yucatan, Oct. 6 via Chiapas95)

From El Universal, Oct. 4 via Chiapas95, Oct. 4 (our translation):

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica.- The president-elect of Mexico, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, and that of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, agreed on the need to re-evaluate and re-analyze the Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP); and on the possibility of creating a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (ALCA). Arias said "there are many obstacles", including the "great hypocrisy" of countries like the United States, "that talk in favor of free trade but don't practice it."

It seems Oaxaca's revolutionary model may be spreading to neighboring states. From Notimex Oct. 1, via Chiapas95:

CHILPANCINGO, GUERRERO: This weekend, at least 30 trade unions and social organizations formed the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Guerrero (APPG in its Spanish initials), whose members announced mobilizations set for this coming Monday.

Tensions are remain high in Oaxaca following the killing of pro-government teacher, which protest leaders fear will be usd to justify a crackdown. Math teacher Jaime Rene Calvo Aragon was amember of the Central Council of Struggle (CCL), which is actually loyal to the political machine of Oaxaca's Gov. Ulises Ruiz and his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). It is a dissident pro-government current in local Section 22 of the National Education Workers Syndicate (SNTE), which is demanding that Ruiz step down. Calvo Aragon was found knifed to death Oct. 5. Immediately, the Popular Peoples Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), which is supporting Section 22's demands, denounced the murder as a ploy to justify repression, and claimed the government is planning to use military troops to put down the movement in Oaxaca under the name "Plan Iron." APPO remains on "maximum alert." (La Jornada, Oct. 6)