John Kerry: “And if that were the case, and they were prepared to come to the table to resolve these issues and be part of this…”

“And if that were the case, and they were prepared to come to the table to resolve these issues and be part of this process, then the President could come back to us and we would respond accordingly. We are not stupid. We want to act in the best interest of our country. The question is, how do you begin to push people to a place where they realize they have to confront these realities? Secondly, the Senator's question makes a presumption that I just fundamentally disagree with and don't see in this amendment. That is if we pull out the foundation, I think the Senator said, we specifically say we arrive at a schedule coordinated with the Government of Iraq, leaving only the minimal number of forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi forces. I have asked the Senator from Virginia, what are we there for? What are we there to do? We are there to fight al-Qaida. We allow for that. We are there to stand up Iraqis for themselves. We allow that. And we are certainly there to protect American facilities. So what is it that is absent from here that would somehow pull out the foundation from anything?”