As the House prepares for yet another vote on giving Bush $163B to occupy Iraq well into 2009, events on the ground are increasing the likelihood that the occupation will become illegal on January 1.

According to the NY Times,

Tens of thousands of Shiites in Baghdad and southern Iraq who are loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr denounced the negotiations in rallies after noon prayers on Friday, criticizing any pact that would allow American troops to establish a long-term presence in Iraq. “No America! No Israel!” demonstrators shouted in Sadr City, the Baghdad district that is Mr. Sadr’s base of power.

But it's not just Shia militants who oppose any treaty with the U.S.; Sunni militants feel exactly the same way and want to join forces with the Shia to drive the U.S. out.

Of course Bush isn't negotiating with the insurgents, but instead with the Iraqi "government" he created. And that's clearly not going very well, according to ABC:

On Monday, Iraq's national security council asked the prime minister to ensure that the deal would not violate Iraqi independence.

On Thursday, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the largest parliament bloc, released a statement saying, "Since many of the specified points of the deal violate Iraq's national sovereignty, so they are not acceptable to Iraqis."

Now when Arabs don't want to make a deal, it's not their style to say "go Cheney yourself." Rather, they let the slow passage of time do the heavy lifting. According to the NY Times,

“This agreement is between Iraq and the United States president, and the American policy is not clear,” said Ali Adeeb, a senior member of the Shiite Dawa Party and a close ally of Mr. Maliki’s. “We can wait until the American elections to deal with a Democratic or Republican president”...

“The negotiations now are not equal, and the results will be more for the benefit of America,” said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker. “To have a long-term agreement with the Bush administration, which has five months to go, is wrong,” he added. “The Iraqi government should wait for the new American administration and then have an agreement with it.”

If the moderate Shia and Kurds won't sign a treaty with lame-duck Bush, who's left? The minority Sunni faction quit the government because they had no influence.

And to make things worse, it's an election year in Iraq too - and the occupation is obviously the top issue for angry purple-fingered Iraqi voters.

One American official in Baghdad said that the Iraqis appeared to be unwilling to make any concessions before the country’s provincial elections later this year to avoid seeming, to Iraqi voters, — to be too accommodating to the occupying forces. “They are playing hardball right now,” the official said.

As I have argued repeatedly, Bush desperately needs a treaty to allow U.S. troops and contractors to remain after the U.N. mandate expires on December 31. But the biggest enemy he faces isn't rejection by the Iraqi government he created, but instead his own lame-duck status.

So what will happen on January 1 when the U.N. mandate expires? Will U.S. troops and contractors lose their immunity and be subject to Iraqi criminal and civil law?

If so, lawyers for the Pentagon and the contractors will tell their bosses to bring all Americans home, or face the nightmare of seeing Americans locked up in Iraqi jails.

This is not a wildly speculative scenario; we all saw how humiliating it was when Iran seized 15 British sailors in 2007.

So before Nancy Pelosi forces the House to vote again on spending $165 billion more to occupy Iraq in 2009, shouldn't she find out if that occupation will be illegal?