John Kerry blames Britain for derailing Obama's plan for intervention in Syria

The American president said he would bomb the Syrian regime if it used chemical weapons but he did not follow through on his promise. The failure to enforce his stated “red line” after President Bashar al-Assad used sarin gas in a Damascus suburb in August 2013 is seen by some as the worst stain on Obama’s legacy.

The British parliament’s vote against air strikes has long been cited by Obama and others as a causal factor but Kerry made the link explicit just a week after a diplomatic spat with the United Kingdom’s prime minister, Theresa May, over a United Nations resolution that condemned Israel.

Asked by reporters at a farewell press conference in Washington if the “red line” episode was a nadir of the modern presidency, Kerry argued that the media had not properly analysed, assessed or reported exactly what took place.

“The president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, did decide to use force and he announced his decision publicly and he said we’re going to act, we’re going to do what we need to do to respond to this blatant violation of international law and of warnings and of the red line he had chosen,” he said.