A senior White House official, asked whether the Obama administration viewed the independence of Kurdistan as inevitable, said: “I think that’s premature. Whatever one thinks of that prospect, now is not the time for another destabilizing event.”

But he added: “The way we’re thinking about it is, we’ve got to put out the fires first. Then we can think about the future of Iraq.”

Within the administration, Secretary of State John Kerry and his senior aides have spearheaded an effort to keep the Kurds inside a united Iraq.