Iraq Insurgents Say No

...to Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's much ballyhooed peace plan:

BAGHDAD, June 25, 2006 (UPI) -- Iraq's prime minister plans to offer up a peace plan aimed at ending the insurgency but most Sunni insurgent groups say it doesn't meet their concerns.

Nouri al-Maliki is set to unveil a 28-point plan that will offer amnesty for prisoners and provide a place for insurgents in the political process if they disarm and end the campaign of violence, The Sunday Times reports.

It also calls for U.N. watchdogs to implement a withdrawal of foreign troops.

This plan has received alot of attention in both the MSM and the Blogosphere, but it looks as though there is less to it than meets the eye. For one thing, there is no date set on the withdrawal of foreign troops and, as Juan Cole and Aljazeera have already pointed out, the "amnesty" for militants is very tenuous:

The amnesty is not extended to anyone who has "shed Iraqi blood," and the Bush administration made al-Maliki back off the idea of granting amnesty to guerrillas who had killed US troops.

But if the point of the amnesty is to bring the guerrilla leadership in from the cold, this amnesty is useless. What Sunni Arab guerrillas worth their salt have killed no Iraqis and no US troops? As for the rest, why would Sunnis who had not killed anyone need to be amnestied? And wouldn't they be rather pitiful guerrillas?

There's more stuff on Informed Comment is especially interesting.