According to a Washington Times report, the Iraqi parliament hopes to pass an oil law and make amendments to their constitution within the next month.
Iraq's parliament should pass a new oil law and make progress on amending the constitution before the end of the month, two key "benchmarks" being demanded by U.S. officials, a top Iraqi official said yesterday.
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, one of the highest-ranking Kurdish officials in the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said that despite the increasingly pessimistic debate in Washington, Iraqi lawmakers should take action on both difficult issues in the coming days.
Mr. Salih said Iraqis are watching the U.S. debate over the Iraq war with mounting concern, saying that even recent signs of progress in Iraq are being overlooked in the partisan debate here.
Should the Iraqis make progress on both benchmark issues, it will be of interest to see if the tenor of the debate in Washington changes as a result. I suspect not, since the debate has always been driven by Democrats' perception of their election chances rather than progress in the war in Iraq or the war on terror.
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