The American schedule for withdrawing troops from Iraq is under threat after the Iraqi parliament’s failure yesterday to meet a deadline for setting up national elections as planned in January.

Members of parliament had until last night to pass an election law after weeks of wrangling and public grandstanding. Even repeated interventions by the US ambassador could not convince MPs to agree on a set of rules for the poll, which may now be delayed for months.

An important Shia religious holiday in early February makes it difficult to push back the poll by only a few weeks. A significant election delay will put in doubt President Obama’s schedule for having all US combat troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2010.

American commanders have said that they will only start their planned big drawdown 30 to 60 days after the elections. About 65,000 troops and their equipment accumulated over six years will have to be shipped home next spring and summer in one of the largest logistical feats performed by any modern army. Some 50,000 will stay behind as trainers for another year.

Yesterday’s election law deadline was set by the Independent High Electoral Commission, which will organise the poll. Its chief, Faraj al-Haidari, warned that there will not be enough time. Holding the election on time will be “difficult and impossible,” he said. “Fifteen thousand polling stations have to be made ready for the election, as do 50,000 personnel.”

An electoral law was supposed to be in place 90 days before voting takes place, a requirement that can no longer be met. Constitutionally the election must be held by January 31 but because of the Shia holiday the commission is planning for January 16.

Two contentious issues are holding up the law in parliament. One is the choice of electoral system to be used for picking new MPs. Under a proposed change to the existing system, voters will be able to cast their vote for individual candidates and not just broad party alliances. This is threatening the political future of some powerful but unpopular MPs.

The other problem holding up the election is that MPs cannot agree on who will be allowed to vote in the ethnically mixed and oil-rich region of Kirkuk. Thousands of Kurds have moved there in recent years, leading Arabs to insist on using voter records pre-dating their arrival and hence more favourable to Arab parties.

MPs have been fighting over these issues for months. Several deadlines have passed but the latest one may be final. The logistical problems of organising an election on time now appear insurmountable unless an immediate compromise can be found.

Delays are, of course, nothing new in post-Saddam Iraqi politics. Often they are the norm. Recent debates among Iraqi politicians have been heated but few of them appear visibly disturbed by the threat of a delay. Nobody doubts that an election will be held eventually.

Such equanimity is not evident in the American Embassy and US military headquarters in Baghdad. The delicately choreographed timetable for ending the occupation of Iraq that President Obama set out soon after his inauguration is one of the new Administration’s few clear foreign policy successes. It can cope with a delay of a few weeks but not a few months.

MPs once again gathering in the Council of Representatives, in Baghdad’s green zone, yesterday talked for hours both in the chamber and in the corridors but failed to come to an agreement. Flitting among the MPs were American diplomats eager to facilitate a compromise but increasingly powerless since Iraqis have taken over more of the country’s security apparatus this year.

“Nobody is afraid of them anymore like they used to be,” an aide to an MP said. “They no longer have the power to force things. Maybe that’s too bad.”

The main foreign interlocutors of the Iraqis are now UN officials. They have been making compromise suggestions in recent days and weeks but have had no more success than the Americans.

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