Talk about burying the lede! The Times today doesn't get to the real news from Iraq until way down in its roundup of violence, bombings, etc., when it reports this:

Also in Baghdad, the Iraqi Parliament voted to require the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to bring the matter of how long American troops can stay in Iraq before lawmakers in order for any additional extensions to occur.

Juan Cole, in his blog Informed Comment, says that the vote was 85 to 59 (most members of the 275-member parliament don't bother showing up, mostly out of fear or inability to travel). Adds Cole:

Since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's allies voted against it, this resolution could actually be seen as a vote of no confidence for al-Maliki (see below), though it won't cause his government to fall unless the three blocs decide to attempt to bring him down. I have been saying for the past several months that I wonder if al-Maliki could survive a vote of no confidence, and this resolution helps answer the question. (The answer is, "no.")

Leave it Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, writing for Alternet, to underscore the importance of this:

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.

Reached today by phone in Baghdad, Nassar al Rubaie, the head of Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives, said, "This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions." Rubaie added: "There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal."

Reached by phone today in Amman, Jordan, following the vote, [Salah] al-Mutlaq [of the National Diaologue Front, a Sunni party in parliament] said: "The parliament is more powerful now -- we can block the renewal of the U.N. mandate and demand to attach a timetable to it."

The resolution passed today is only one part of the nationalists' effort to bring about a U.S. withdrawal. Nassar al Rubaie said of the measure's passage: "All of this is just our backup plan, but our other and more specific resolution setting a timetable will come soon." He promised that nationalists in parliament would force debate on a "clean" and binding resolution requiring occupation forces to withdrawal from the country in the immediate future. "We'll start the deliberations next week," he said. "We have enough signatures for that one already."