Kerry Likely Misled Congress on Syria

In pushing the case for war with Syria in September, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that the majority of rebels were “moderates,” and not Islamists. Three months later, the top “moderate” general, Salim Idris, was pushed out of the country by Islamist rivals within the Syrian opposition, and the U.S. has halted its aid.

At the time that Kerry made his claim–backed up by Republican Sen. John McCain and supported by shoddy research–it was clear to virtually everyone else that the moderates had long since lost momentum and that the Islamists had the upper hand. Even the mainstream media were skeptical of Kerry’s far-fetched claims.

“”I just don’t agree that a majority are al Qaeda and the bad guys. That’s not true,” Kerry said. He also claimed:

At best, Kerry was wrong–egregiously wrong, at least as wrong as the Bush administration had been about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. At worst–given an ocean of contrary information–he misled Congress to build support for a war that the public did not want and that was too late to stop the rise of Islamist forces.