That's hardly the language of a supposed bona fide diplomat who presents an image to the world as a politician concerned to bring about an end to the five-year Syrian conflict.
The US Secretary of State repeatedly sounds anxious to alleviate the appalling suffering of the Syrian nation, where over the past five years some 400,000 people have been killed and millions displaced as refugees.
Anyone who has not been brainwashed by Western media propaganda knows full well that the suffering of Syria has been caused by Washington and its allies sponsoring a covert war for regime change in that country.
Kerry was speaking during another round of failed negotiations -- this time in Vienna -- along with other leaders from the 17-nation International Syria Support Group that includes Russia, as well as the United Nations.
The "support group" is a disgustingly erroneous name, given that certain members of this entity -- primarily the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- have done everything in their power to sponsor a proxy terrorist war on Syria. If the truth were not so abject, it would be laughable.
In a Voice of America report headlined "US still has leverage in Syria," Kerry is quoted thus: "He said the greatest leverage [on Syria] was the fact that [President] Assad and his backers would never be able to end the war in Syria if they declined to negotiate a political settlement."
Consider the pernicious import of that for a moment. In other words, America's top "diplomat" is laying down a criminal ultimatum to the sovereign state of Syria and its elected government of President Bashar al-Assad. Kerry is saying in no uncertain terms that unless the Syrian authorities do not accept Washington's demand for regime change, then the country is facing never-ending war.Of course, being a weasel-worded diplomat, Kerry does not use the illegal term "regime change." He instead talks about "political transition." And he has set a date in August for this "transition" to take place. But what Kerry's euphemistic jargon boils down to is this: the Syrian president and his administration must vacate government -- or else face more violence and destruction.
This is the political objective that Washington and its allies in NATO, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have wanted all along. They want what is an independent, anti-imperialist Syrian government to give way to some composite regime that would be a puppet for Washington's geopolitical interests in the oil-rich, strategically vital Middle East region.
Any replacement regime would spurn its erstwhile allies of Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement to become an American vassal.
In reality, the supposed pro-democracy change that Washington allegedly wants to install in Syria would be dominated by a repressive, fundamentalist regime that would betray the interests of the Syrian people. We can count on this outcome because the proxies who are waging Washington's covert war are dominated by extremists fully aligned with their despotic sponsors in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Kerry's apparent confidence in predicting that Syria faces a war of attrition if it does capitulate is a tacit admission by Washington that it controls the illegally armed factions in Syria.
The United States may officially proscribe terror groups like al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al Nusra and the so-called Islamic State (also known as Daesh). The US pays lip service to "defeating terrorism."
But anyone with an informed understanding of what is really happening in Syria and other countries subjected to US-led regime change knows that Washington has orchestrated these same terror groups for its criminal political objectives.
This is corroborated by the fact that Washington refuses to coordinate its (ineffectual) bombing campaign with Russia to eliminate the terror groups. It is corroborated by the fact that Washington and its allies point-blank refuse Russia's proposals at the UN Security Council to designate other known terror outfits -- Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams -- as terrorist.