John Kerry actually said...

"The bottom line is, the President has no intention, and will not, and we do not want to, put American troops on the ground to fight this or be involved in the fighting of the civil war period."

"This authorization is a limited, targeted effort to focus on deterring and degrading the chemical weapons capacity of the Assad regime."

"We cannot afford for Hezbollah or any terrorist group determined to strike the United States to have incentives to acquire or use chemical weapons."

"We believe we can achieve them with a military action that would be limited in duration and scope."