Summary: Iraq imposed a nationwide security lockdown before key regional elections with blanket measures not seen since the deadliest years of the insurgency, underscoring the high stakes for Iraqi leaders desperate to portray stability after nearly six years of conflict.
Iraq’s fractious parliament squeezed its abrasive speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani out of a job and authorized non-U.S. foreign troops to stay in the country for another half-year, a pair of high-stakes moves in its final session of 2008.