MSNBC is reporting that 11 Sunni insurgent groups have made overtures to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki following his decision to reach out to Sunni’s with a reconcilation plan.

The insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to attacks, including those on American troops, but they have some demands also:

1. Withdrawal of American troops by 2008
2. An end to American and Iraqi operation against insurgents
3. Compensation for Iraqis killed by U.S. and Iraqi forces and reimbursement for property damage.
4. An end to the ban on army officers from Saddam’s regime in the Iraqi military.
5. An end to the government ban on former members of the Baath Party — which ruled Iraq under Saddam.
6. The release of insurgent detainees.

“If they set a two-year timetable for the withdrawal we will stop all our operations immediately,” said the leader in a telephone interview with the AP.

I don’t think a firm timetable will be set, but I do believe these are reasonable starting points for negotiation.

The groups making the offer don’t include Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The timing on this is interesting in my opinion. Today Iraq’s Prime Minister visited with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who I am told carries a great deal of spiritual weight with Sunni Muslims, I assume because he controls Mecca. From what I heard on the radio today King Abdullah was receptive. I expect he would be given the growing crisis with Iran. A stable Iraq can help serve as a buttress against a hostile Iran.

Another domestic factor that may be playing into this also involves Iran. There is a growing split in the Shia community with some , such as Maqmhoud al-Sadr advocating closer ties with [Persian] Iran, while others are more concerned with maintain their traditional Arab, Tribal, Iraqi ties above their religous sectarian identity.

As a side note the Iranians have to be sweating bullets over this, suddenly our troops may not be that occupied. I also wonder how long for the theory that this was held up to help Republicans win the ‘06 mid-term elections to show up.

Update: I mistakenly said that the Iraqi Prime Minister was meeting with the Saudi King. It was actually the American Ambassador to Iraq. I knew that I was just typing faster than I was thinking.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 9:38 pm by Chad and is filed under War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.