A hectic two days for Iraq oil law watchers. It begins with headlines in all the major papers, and the wires, that the “oil law” has been passed by the Cabinet, and is now going on to the Parliament for a vote. Wire stories yesterday said the vote would be today. Now they say a week. Maybe.

Ben Lando of UPI, on it as ever, then broke the story yesterday that the Kurdistan Regional Government hadn’t even seen the law.

Then it turns out that the Sadrist bloc has deep reservations and “will demand that a paragraph be added that would forbid the signing of any contract with any country that has military forces in Iraq”. Thats a clever twist.

Meanwhile, Iraqslogger also reports that the Tawafuq Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc in Parliament is currently boycotting Parliament, and will seek to at least amend the law.
And finally, to end the day, Iraq’s Council of the Ulema, a group of senior Sunni Muslim clerics led by Sheikh Harith al-Darri, has issued a fatwa (religious edict) forbidding members of parliament from ratifying the law.

Quite a day. What I really want to know is who pushed this out yesterday, clearly before everything was lined up, and why?

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