This just in from the Washington Post:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday proposed a limited amnesty to help end the Sunni Arab insurgency as part of a national reconciliation plan that Maliki said would be released within days. The plan is likely to include pardons for those who had attacked only U.S. troops, a top adviser said.

I have to wonder what is going on here. Bush hand-picked this guy after a strong-armed push to oust the previous democratically-elected stooge Prime Minister. Yet this is not the first time the guy has enacted a controversial policy that seems to fly directly into the face of Bush's Cowboy Foreign Policy without a peep of protest from the White House. My guess is that President Bush Cheney has cut some kind of deal with the guy to play the role of maverick in order to help Bush justify an early retreat with his right-wing base. Either that or Bush has finally come around to the fact that his position is a miserable failure with no hope of success. I'm inclined to believe the former.