Kerry's New Defense of Syrian Action: Doing Nothing Means More Extremist Rebels

Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that even more extremist rebels will come in if the U.S. does nothing to act against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“I guarantee you if we turn our backs today, the picture we all saw in the paper today and the media of those people being shot, that will take place more because more extremists will be attracted to this, because they will be funded as the only alternative in order to take on Assad,” Kerry said on MSNBC's "All in with Chris Hayes."

Kerry was referring to The New York Times' publication of images of rebels executing pro-Assad soldiers. The Times acknowledged Friday that the video published was actually a year old.

Watch via National Review:

On Thursday, Kerry said the U.S. will "have lost credibility in the world" if it does nothing to oppose the use of chemical weapons but also insisted "this is not Iraq."

To bolster his argument, Kerry said he and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel both opposed the war in Iraq, despite both actually having voted to authorize force in 2002 when they were both U.S. senators.

(H/T: National Review)

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