Kerry Defends Decision to Not Enforce Syria Red Line: Congress Wasn’t Going to Give Us Authority

MARGARET BRENNAN: Even though there have been chemical weapons attacks since then.

JOHN KERRY: Did it— we knew there were precursor chemicals and— and we knew that there was chlorine, which when mixed they still had ability. Those aren’t declared. That’s just the vagary of the— system by which they measure—

MARGARET BRENNAN: But there have been sarin gas attacks since then, so—

JOHN KERRY: —chemical weapons. Yes. That is correct.

MARGARET BRENNAN: —under the Trump administration.

JOHN KERRY: That’s absolutely correct. And I supported President Trump’s response to those partially. I— I— I supported the use of force, but I don’t support just a one-off where you drop a few bombs and there’s no follow-up diplomacy and no additional effort to try to use the leverage you get out of doing that. I thought that the President should have done that, President Trump should have done that. And—

MARGARET BRENNAN: You thought President Obama should have done that, too.

JOHN KERRY: Yes. That’s correct.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You were sent around the world to rally support for other countries to stand with the United States to say that this red line on use of chemical weapons needed to be enforced. How difficult was that for you given that the President blinked? He decided not to go through with those military strikes.

JOHN KERRY: Congress was clearly not going to give him the authority that he wanted.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you thought that the President could have gone ahead with those strikes.

JOHN KERRY: I did. Yes, I did. I did.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You wrote in the book— you write about being surprised when he called you and said, “I’m going to Congress.”

JOHN KERRY: I was surprised. I thought we were going to go forward. I thought that weekend was the weekend. I expected the phone call to be telling me that he had decided we were striking that night or whatever was going to happen, and it wasn’t. My job was to then affect the President’s policy. And I did the best I could in going to Congress and arguing the case. But I do write that we paid a price for that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

JOHN KERRY: There’s no question about that. We paid a price. And— and all the explanations and everything else doesn’t change the perception. And perceptions sometimes are very telling in diplomacy and politics.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You— you paid a price. You mean, the red line moment has come to for many critics of President Obama—

JOHN KERRY: It’s—

MARGARET BRENNAN: —define his foreign policy and define it as weak, as not backing up a threat.

JOHN KERRY: For many people that’s exactly what I ran into. When I ran into that in the Middle East. It was something that I had to push back against for a long period of time. And that’s why I say perceptions, but perceptions matter obviously in everything. But I don’t think it’s fair in terms of the President, quote, “Being weak” because the President took a lot of very tough positions and— and did a lot of things that evidence strength and that showed a President who had a very clear moral compass as well as very clear a very clear— a very clear set of values and principles by which he knew he could protect our country.