Mission Accomplished: Iraq Parliament approves SOFA.

After five and a half years of war the Iraqi parliament have finally approved the status of forces agreement which will dictate the US withdrawal from Iraq.

The agreement was ratified a week ago by Prime Minister Nouri al-Mailki's cabinet, and is now guaranteed to be approved by Iraq's presidential council.

As noted previously, one of the concessions to resistant Sunni lawmakers was an agreement the pact be voted on in a national referendum occurring no later than July 30, 2009. Should the Iraqi voters reject the SOFA, the United States would be required to have all troops out of Iraq within one year, or July 30, 2010.

I fully expect the Iraqi people to reject SOFA and demand the withdrawal of all US troops, so Bush has now agreed to a possible withdrawal which perfectly echoes the timetable put forward by Barack Obama during the American election.

Despite all the talk of Obama "surrendering", Bush has bowed to the inevitable and conceded that the Iraqi people should decide the future of the US occupation. And I think we all have strong suspicions of what the Iraqi people are going to demand.

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Tags: Bush, Iraq, Iraq war, SOFA, Obama