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Iraqi leaders are certain their country will retain its alliance with the United States when Barack Obama becomes president, Iraq's U.N. ambassador said Friday.

Ambassador Hamid al-Bayati said Iraqi officials have been meeting with Obama's transition team, "and they assured us they're going to listen to the experts on the ground — political, military experts — and even to Iraqi officials and Iraqi experts about the situation in Iraq."

Asked whether Iraq expects an Obama administration to act differently from President Bush's administration on Middle East issues, al-Bayati said, "It's too early to predict."

But, he said, "we're going to be allies regardless of who is the president."

Al-Bayati talked to reporters after speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report on the U.N. civilian mission in Iraq. The mission is helping the Iraqi government prepare for the first provincial elections since 2005.

Iraq's two most powerful Shiite clerics on Friday challenged the government's planned security pact with the United States, undercutting efforts to reach a deal before the U.N. mandate for American troops in Iraq expires Dec. 31.

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr renewed threats to unleash his militia fighters to attack U.S. forces unless they leave Iraq immediately, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani vowed to intervene if he concludes that the agreement governing the presence of U.S. forces infringes on national sovereignty.

Iraqi officials have said they will seek a renewal of the U.N. Security Council's mandate if the pact, which would allow American troops to stay in Iraq through 2011, is not passed by Iraq's parliament by year's end.

The pressure from the clerics showcases the precarious position of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Most of his Shiite allies reject the deal, including the senior partner in his coalition, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, and his own spiritual guide, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon.

Al-Sadr's threat to attack American troops if they don't leave came in a statement by the Iran-based cleric that was read to thousands of supporters at Friday prayers in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City enclave and the city of Kufa, south of Baghdad.

"I repeat my call on the occupier to get out from the land of our beloved Iraq, without retaining bases or signing agreements," he said. "If they do stay, I urge the honorable resistance fighters . . . to direct their weapons exclusively against the occupier."

The statement did not say when or under what conditions the attacks might resume.