Maliki's government is a legitimate as a $3 dollar bill, and probably worth as much. If Maliki and his government protests our policies toward Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, we ignore him. If US hired mercenaries shoot up Iraqi civilians in downtown Baghdad, our State Department protects them. And if various political leaders who are our allies don't want the Iraqi government to carry out these executions? Well we ignore the head of the government and do what we want which is to make those other leaders happy.

But then if we really respected Maliki's government we wouldn't openly be talking about plans to depose him and install a more American friendly ruler in his place. Which may explain why Maliki is cooperating with President Bush to do an end run around the Iraqi Parliament in order to reauthorize his government's consent to an American occupation of his country, a consent that was otherwise due to expire this December (via Alternet):

In 2006, Maliki's office requested the renewal of the U.N. mandate without consulting the legislature, a process that many lawmakers maintained was a violation of Iraqi law. The problem was that Maliki didn't have the authority to make the request under the Iraqi constitution. Article 58, Section 4 says that the Council of Representatives (the parliament) has to ratify "international treaties and agreements" negotiated by the Council of Ministers (the cabinet). Specifically, it reads: "A law shall regulate the ratification of international treaties and agreements by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Council of Representatives."

Prime Minister Maliki had claimed that the constitution didn't refer to the U.N. mandate. A senior Iraqi lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of the assertion: "If we are asked to approve a trade agreement concerning olive oil, should we not have the right to pass on an agreement concerning the stationing of foreign military forces in our national soil?"

In June, we reported that the parliament had passed a binding resolution that would force Maliki to go to the parliament and give Iraqi lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the mandate. It was signed by the majority of the 275-seat legislature, then sent to the president. According to the Iraqi constitution, the president had 15 days to veto it by sending it back to the parliament; otherwise it automatically became a ratified law. The 15 days passed without a veto and the resolution became the law of the land in mid-June 2007.

Something happened, however, between the passage of that law and the latest report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. According to Moon's latest report to the Security Council (PDF), dated Oct. 15, the law that had been passed by the duly elected legislature of Iraq became nothing more than a "nonbinding resolution": [...]

One might have believed that the disconnect was a simple mistake, if not for the fact that members of the Iraqi parliament, still fuming over being cut out of the process the year before, sent a letter to the U.N.'s special envoy for Iraq back in April clarifying the situation in very clear terms. According to an English translation provide by the Global Policy Forum, it says: "The Iraqi Cabinet has unilaterally requested a renewal of the U.N. mandate keeping the occupation troops (MNF) in Iraq" despite the fact that "such a request issued by the Iraqi cabinet without the Iraqi parliament's approval is unconstitutional." It continues: "The Iraqi parliament, as the elected representatives of the Iraqi people, has the exclusive right to approve and ratify international treaties and agreements, including those signed with the United Nations Security Council."

According to sources within the Iraqi delegation to the United Nations, the letter, signed by 144 MPs --more than half of Iraq's legislators -- was received in good order by the special envoy, Ashraf Qazi, but never distributed to the Security Council members, as is required under the U.N. resolution that governs the mandate. The parliament, and indeed the majority of the Iraqi population, had been cleanly excised from the legislative process.

In other words, the only sovereign power in Iraq is the US Military. We aren't spreading freedom and democracy in Iraq, we're colonizing it. It would make more sense to simply appoint General Petraeus High Commissioner for the Iraqi Territories, or Ambassador Crocker Governor of the US administered Iraqi Protectorate. At the very least it would be more honest.

As to why the Bush administration will likely continue to find a way to keep our occupation of Iraq technically legal despite the protestations of the majority of Iraq's parliamentarians, author and senior fellow for religious affairs with the Pacific Council on International Relations, Jack Miles, has the answer:

. . . Shortly before the collapse of the Iraqi oil legislation effort, Bush's Commerce Department began quietly advertising for an Arabic-speaking legal advisor to help it in "providing technical assistance to Iraq to create a legal and tax environment conducive to domestic and foreign investment in Iraq's key economic sectors, starting with the mineral resources sector." (Read: starting with oil.) As it happens, the job description overlaps heavily with that of the Development Fund for Iraq's existing International Advisory and Monitoring Board, whose responsibility, according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483, has been to see to it "that all export sales of petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas from Iraq…. shall be made consistent with prevailing international marketing best practices." Is the Commerce Department already planning for the demise of this board? Like the super-embassy and the super-bases, this bit of Commerce Department staffing-up bespeaks the urge to continue an invasive American presence in Iraq, including Iraq's energy sector, long after December 31, 2008. [...]

The expiration date that Iraq has now set for the operation of a multinational force on its territory coincides almost exactly with the end of the Bush administration. As that date nears, the endgame question may become: How far can the administration go in repudiating its own erstwhile agenda and returning Iraq to its pre-war status -- that is, to U.S.-backed Sunni domination of Iraqi domestic politics. That would, of course, result in armed Iraqi hostility to the administration's enemy of enemies in the region, Iran, and a resigned return to collaboration with the Saudi-dominated Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the management of the world oil market, all under a largely offshore U.S. military umbrella. Will the fallback dream now be the one the President's father entertained after Gulf War I -- the creation in Baghdad of a kinder, gentler Saddam Hussein with whom, to use the classic phrase, the U.S. can "do business"?

Maybe an enterprising journalist (if there are any left) should start asking this question of our Republican and Democratic candidates for President:

Will you respect the wishes of the Iraqi government if they fail to extend their consent to our continued military presence in Iraq after 2008, and withdraw our troops, or will you insist on keeping American forces there in contravention of the explicit demands of the Iraqi government and after the termination of all legal authority for our presence in Iraq?

I think we already know how Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich would answer that question. It's time to get the rest of them on the record, particularly the presumed front runners. Not that we should expect a straightforward answer to the question from any of them, but it's still useful to know how they intend to weasel around giving us an honest response.