Al-Maliki Negotiates a Treaty with US Kurds Defiant on Oil Deals

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is negotiating a formal bilateral treaty with the United States. The question is whether the agreement will be submitted to parliament for ratification, and whether al-Maliki will be able to get a majority of parliamentarians to vote for it if so. Much of the work of the Iraqi government is never put through parliament and is just implemented by fiat by the executive.

Iraq’s Kurds are undeterred by the warning by federal Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani that contracts signed by the Kurdistan Regional Government with foreign oil companies are null and void unless they are also signed by the federal government. The Kurds say they will go on making the contracts.

Marjorie Cohn on the need to keep fighting against the idea of a new war with Iran.