John Kerry

The President is asking for the Congress to take steps that will specifically deter and degrade Assad's capacity to use chemical weapons.

The President is asking for a limited authority to degrade his current capacity and to deter him from using it again.

I am a bit skeptical that what the President is asking for will provide the support needed to achieve these objectives

The action the President is asking us to consider, what he termed--not me--what he called a shot across the bow

Doing nothing, but that would guarantee the following outcome, an emboldened Assad, an emboldened Iran, increased instability in the country

I think that is the ideal outcome, but it has its own complications.

The U.S. wouldn't do anything about it

When America ignores these problems, these problems don't ignore us

Assad is an anti-American supporter of terrorism. He is a supporter of Hamas. He is a supporter of Hezbollah.

What happens in Syria is a vital national interest to the United States and to our national security

There is a very broad coalition that is growing of people who believe we ought to take action against Syria.

Everything is being considered, and all of these things are being evaluated.

Israel feels very confident about Israel's ability to deal, as they have previously, with a miscalculation by Assad.

If he is foolish enough to respond to the world's enforcement against his criminal activity, if he does, he will invite something far worse, and I believe, something absolutely unsustainable for him.

I believe the best way to curb that and reduce the threat is by acting.

I think it is important for us not to get into an unnecessary struggle over some of this with the Russians for a lot of reasons.

I do know, I think it is safe to say, that they had a whole team that ran a scenario to try to test their theory, to see if there was any possibility they could come up with an alternative view as to who might have done it.

It is the right thing to do, and I will support a targeted effort, but not a blank check, to respond to Syria's unspeakable deeds to gas its own people to death.

I believe we cannot close our eyes to this clear violation of longstanding international norms.

I believe it is a totally false comparison.

I applaud President Obama for coming to Congress and will support a targeted response to Syria's unspeakable deeds to gas its own people to death.

I voted to approve the Chemical Weapons Convention because chemical weapons have no place in the civilized world and some behavior must be out of bounds.

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

I think that it is fair to say that our interests would be seriously set back in many respects if we are viewed as not capable--or willing, most important--to follow through on the things that we say matter to us.

Well, if we fail to act, we are going to have fewer allies.