Friday, June 16, 2006

Amnesty in Iraq to avert civil war

Donald Sensing posted a good piece advancing the case for amnesty in Iraq as a plan to avoid all-out civil war.

According to radio news reports this morning, some members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, have gone ballistic over the proposal of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to offer amnesty to some Iraqi insurgents. Financial Times reports:

The new Iraqi government, led by Nuri al-Maliki, the Shia Islamist prime minister, is launching a number of national reconciliation initiatives including the release of thousands of detainees and possibly an amnesty for sectors of the overwhelmingly Sunni insurgency. Alongside these carrots, Mr Maliki plans to use the stick of a massive security clampdown centred on Baghdad, where scores of Iraqis are dying each day in sectarian carnage.

Is this a good idea? I think it is, although of course the devil in the details has yet to be fleshed out. (And al-Maliki is no “Islamist,” as FT says, though he is certainly Muslim.)

Read the whole thing. Donald Sensing is one of the most respected links on my blogroll. I have a lot of respect for him.

This morning I see that the idea is being blown to hell and back by all kinds of people -- left and right, both parties, smart and stupid. The dove of peace has been on the endangered species list longer than any other of God's creatures.

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