John Kerry: “No, sir, I am not making that presumption, Mr. President. I am saying that unless you resolve the fundamental political…”

“No, sir, I am not making that presumption, Mr. President. I am saying that unless you resolve the fundamental political tension-- the Shia don't have oil revenues. They want a strong Iraq with a central government. The Shia are well taken care of. The Kurds are happy in the north; they want to be left alone. They have oil revenues. So you have Kirkut as a major issue you have to resolve ultimately. But you have this fundamental tension between whether you are going to have this federal loose-knit structure which the Shia want, with certain individuals with strong designs on future political power in that region, or whether you are going to have a manageable entity. That is why the former counsel for Foreign Relations and Senator Biden and others have joined in this idea of partition. The only way you are going to get there--and I don't think it is a particularly viable option--is through this kind of international conference. If you don't ultimately have a resolution by the parties politically, you are going to have a civil war. They have a few months under their own Constitution to try to resolve these things. That is going to be unavoidable. I am not suggesting that the violence is going to suddenly vanish. The question is, How are you ultimately going to take away the rationale for the folks who are engaging in it? As I said, there are five different groups, and we are not dealing very effectively with it.…”