John Kerry. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) slammed Secretary of State John Kerry for his comment that a U.S. strike in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons against civilians would be “unbelievably small.”

“We’re not going to war,” Kerry said Monday in London. “We will not have people at risk in that way. We will be able to hold [Syrian President] Bashar Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we’re talking about doing—[an] unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.”

ZOA National President Mort Klein on Tuesday called Kerry’s statement “ill-conceived” because the U.S. “should do all that is necessary to eliminate Assad’s biological and chemical weapons to the fullest extent possible.”

“What if knocking out, for example, a WMD site or command center requires an extra strike, another missile, a small incursion by special forces on the ground, or a further strike a day after some arbitrary cut-off date? Secretary Kerry’s statement undermines any sense of Obama Administration resolve and will reduce the support it seeks from Congress,” Klein said in a statement.