John Kerry

I think he felt very, very strongly that it was important for us to be in our strongest posture, that the United States needed to speak with one voice.

When someone kills hundreds of children with a weapon the world has banned, we all are responsible.

The President is asking only for the power to make certain that the United States of America means what we say.

We all agree there will be no American boots on the ground.

Let me be clear, we are not asking America to go to war.

If the world's worst despots see that they can flout with impunity prohibitions against the world's worst weapons, then those prohibitions are rendered just pieces of paper.

This is a vote for accountability, the norms and the laws of the civilized world.

I can tell you beyond a reasonable doubt the evidence proves that the Assad regime prepared this attack.

It did happen, and the Bashar al-Assad regime did it.

We are here because a dictator and his family's enterprise... unleashed an outrageous chemical attack against its own citizens.

We need to send to Syria and to the world, to dictators and terrorists, to allies and civilians alike, the unmistakable message that when we say never again we actually don't mean sometimes, we don't mean somewhere, we mean never again.

If we don't take a stand here today, I guarantee you we are more likely to face far greater risks to our security.

Assad will read our silence, our unwillingness to act as a signal that he can use his weapons with impunity.

The risk of not acting is greater than the risk of acting.

Both Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi have stated in recent days that the actions of the Assad regime are unacceptable and that the United States has a responsibility to respond.

The Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act, which Congressman Engel has referred to and authored.

This is about the world's red line, it is about humanity's red line, a line that anyone with a conscience should draw.

Our evidence proves that they used sarin gas that morning, and it proves that they used some of the world's most heinous weapons to kill more than 1,400 innocent people, including at least 426 children.

I think it is--I don't think, I know it is no exaggeration to say that the world is not just watching to see what we decide here, but the world is really watching to see how we decide it.

If we fail to pass this, those who are working with us today with the Syrian opposition... will resort to anybody they can find to help them accomplish their goal.

There is no question in my mind that the President of the United States does not bluff, and he is committed that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

I found that we were and are always stronger when we can act together.

They want to know whether or not America is going to rise to this moment, whether or not we will express our position with the unity that this moment demands.

This is not the time for armchair isolationism.

I remember Iraq. Secretary Hagel who will soon be here and General Dempsey obviously also remembers it very well. Secretary Hagel and I both voted in the United States Senate. And so both of us are especially sensitive to never again…