Pressure was stepped up in Iraq, as Friday sermons in Shiite and Sunni mosques across the country called for the U.S. and other foreign forces to leave their country, almost five-and-a-half years after the American military led an invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Maliki government in Baghdad made it clear this week that any security deal with the United States defining the role of the U.S. troops should entail a time frame for the withdrawal of these forces, a demand that the Bush administration has repeatedly refused.
Negotiations over the status of the U.S. troops in Iraq, after the expiry of the U.N. mandate for that purpose expires at the end of the year, has made little headway since they began in March, after Bush and Maliki agreed to sign a long-term deal by July 31.
The chances for arriving at a long-term arrangement before the end of the month, however, have almost become nil and there is now talk about an interim "memorandum of understanding" instead.
Maliki aides say that the government will not even sign a short-term agreement that does not specify a time frame for withdrawal.
Although the negotiations have been held in secrecy, leaks revealed that the United States was seeking to consolidate and legitimize its occupation of the oil-rich Arab country by maintaining military control.
This prompted Maliki's Sunni and Shiite coalition partners, influential Shiite religious authorities, and opposition parties to unite in calling for a withdrawal time frame, pressuring the government against rushing into signing a deal that would have obviously not been endorsed by the Iraqi parliament.
Iraqi political sources say Maliki is now trying to secure a short-term deal that would neither require an endorsement from the Shiite-dominated Iraqi National Assembly nor the U.S. Congress, taking into consideration that the Bush administration is on its way out and does not want a binding commitment that would tie the hands of future administrations in both countries.
Some Iraqi analysts say that this demand could be a negotiating tactic and might be an effort by Maliki and other government officials to appease the electorate at home, which will vote in October local elections.
But even if that is the case, the demand for withdrawal has become a campaign pledge and there is no turning back, the analysts argue.
Some commentators suspect that the prime minister and officials seeking re-election might sign a deal that would loosely mention a withdrawal, but according to U.S. conditions that would depend on the ability of Iraqi forces to take over.
The Bush administration insists that while it agrees with Baghdad on a withdrawal, it will only make a commitment to do so on the basis of the security conditions in Iraq and whether the Iraqi forces could take over, not on the basis of "calendars."
But Iraqi politicians are being vocal about the readiness of the Iraqi forces, telling the Americans that they can resolve their internal disputes on their own, without a U.S. presence in their midst.
Plus, the Shiite-dominated government and parliament continue to be influenced by the religious authorities, who are keen for an end to the American occupation.
Lebanon's prominent Shiite scholar to whom many Iraqis revere, Ayatollah Hussein Fadlallah, told worshipers at a sermon in Beirut Friday that the Iraqis have finally began to realize that the Americans were seeking to maintain the occupation and refuse a timetable for withdrawal.
"The Iraqi people, in all their sectarian and political forms, have started to feel the American danger on their future generations and unity of their country, in the wake of pressure the occupation exercises to impose its conditions to control Iraq's resources and political decisions," Fadlallah said.
He welcomed the Iraqi government's rejection of the U.S. conditions for signing a deal and called for "national support to the Iraqi government … to unite all in confronting the occupation and seeking to end it."
That is not to say that Maliki and his partners in power are eager to see the Americans leave.
But analysts say the ruling coalition leaders have found themselves alone in trying to keep their "American protectors" in the country.
The vast majority of Iraqis, they add, are simply fed up with the American presence and want them out.
And Maliki may be thinking that to stay in power he should do what the people are calling for, rather than depend solely on support from a U.S. administration that could be replaced in months by one that is seeking a time frame for withdrawal from Iraq anyway.