On June 5, the Iraqi parliament approved a law giving itself the formal authority to block the extension beyond December of the UN Security Council mandate under which US and allied foreign troops are deployed in Iraq.
While the Security Council refused to endorse the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, under heavy pressure from Washington it authorised the US in October 2003 to lead a multi-national security force (MNF) in Iraq. Since June 2004, the mandate has been renewed annually at the request of successive US-backed Iraqi prime ministers without reference to the parliament.
Nassar al Rubaie, the head of a group of 30 MPs aligned with anti-occupation Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, told AlterNet: "There will be no such a thing as a blank cheque for renewing the UN mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."
The draft law was submitted by the Sadrists and supported by Sunni Arab MPs, but opposed by Kurdish legislators and Shiite supporters of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, including the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (SIIC, formerly called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and Maliki's own Islamic Dawa party .
The Sadrists organised a massive demonstration on April 9 in Najaf — estimated by local police to have been attended by around 500,000 Iraqis — to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of the US-led MNF. Last month, 144 of Iraq's 275 MPs signed a statement initiated by the Sadrists calling for a such a timetable, which is also a key demand of Iraq's major, largely Sunni-based, armed resistance groups.
AlterNet noted that while polls show up to 92% of Iraqis regard the MNF as an occupation force, "the UN mandate confers an aura of legitimacy on the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraq's streets, even four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein ... Iraq's government faces a crisis of legitimacy, in large part due to its refusal to demand the withdrawal of US forces long favored by as many as four out of five Iraqis."