Haggling over Amnesty

Muhammad over at Iraq the Model blogs on the seven (or six) insurgent groups coming in from the desert and proposing a truce.
He doesn’t really add much to my previous post, but he does have an interesting comment:

So far, everybody in Iraq feels good about Maliki’s plan and expressed their hopes for it to meet success and ease the suffering of the Iraqi people; everybody except for the Sadrists and the association of Muslim scholars who both criticized the plan and said it wasn’t acceptable and expected it to fail.

I’m not in Baghdad anymore so I have no idea if “everybody feels good” about the plan. I doubt that’s true, but I’m sure most people _want_ to feel good about it. That’s not my point. What’s interesting is the point he makes about the Association of Muslim Scholars, which is also the Muslim Clerics Association “I mentioned previously”:https://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2006/06/coming_in_from_the_desert.php. The MCA, headed by Harith al-Dhari has alleged connections to the 1920 Revolution Brigades through al-Dhari’s son, Muthanna, and which is allegedly one of the groups seeking a truce. What gives?
I’m not sure at this point, but I suspect al-Dhari’s playing both sides of the field at this point, withholding his group’s support for more concessions from the government, while dangling the 1920 Revolution Brigades as a tease. Politics in Iraq are like haggling in a bazaar: outrageous demands, emotional appeals, walking away… all just before agreeing on a final deal. Middle Easterners _love_ this stuff.
Moqtada al-Sadr, who commands the loyalty the Mahdi Army, is certainly doing the same thing. If anyone wants to be declared a legitimate, national resistance who should get amnesty for killing U.S. troops, it’s those guys. Not only are they guilty of “killing American Marines in Najaf”:https://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2004/08/inside_the_imam_ali_shrine.php, they’re also heavily enmeshed in the Shi’a-on-Shi’a violence in Basra as they “jockey for position against their rivals”:https://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/08/clashes_between_badr_and_sadr.php, the Badr Organization and the Fadullah Party. Have they killed Iraqis? Yes. Will they get their amnesty? Answer hazy; ask again later.