it would necessarily drive them further away from the united states, make them greater enemies of the united states, and greater and a much harder to solve the issues of iraq. so there is that hope that they can be peeled away. the possibility is this. who knows what exact price they're going to want for that. >> jim acosta, again, at the white house, president obama really saying look, it's not the u.s. role to tell iraq or tell iraqis who should lead their country. but he couldn't have made it any clearer, they have no confidence in nuri al maliki's ability to reach out to these sunni groups, to reach out to the kurds where or with a damon, and also stressing that a political solution has got to be the way to move iraq forward and unify iraq. >> that's right. the president, anderson, blamed much of the violence in iraq on nuri al maliki, saying the prime minister has failed to unite those rival factions that are really tearing iraq apart. but the president is not making u.s. support for iraq contingent upon maliki stepping down. you saw some reports than