WATCH: John Kerry tells the Senate that Syria isn't like Iraq

But the secretary of state also says "boots on the ground" are an option

John Kerry
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

A week after he made a forceful case for launching an attack on the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he would not rule out deploying soldiers in Syria if the conflict escalated.

"I don't want to take off the table an option that might or might not be on the table," said Kerry. However, he stressed that there was "zero capacity for boots on the ground" under the military campaign President Obama has proposed, which was crafted in response to Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians.

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Keith Wagstaff is a staff writer at TheWeek.com covering politics and current events. He has previously written for such publications as TIME, Details, VICE, and the Village Voice.