How many? The line came back to me as I watched John Kerry, Joe Biden’s climate czar, sitting across the table from Chinese President Xi Jinping at San Francisco’s summit of Asian leaders.

Perhaps Kerry should have been there because Biden believes that climate change is “the ultimate threat to humanity,” and not the communist Chinese or a nuclear armed Iran or North Korea—or even Donald Trump.

That remark just about lets all U.S. enemies off the hook.

Speaking of remarks, Kerry’s was uttered in 1971 before a much-publicized anti-Vietnam War hearing before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

Dressed in military fatigues Kerry, a decorated war veteran who became a leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement, took center stage during a period when the U.S. was seeking ways to get out of the unpopular war with some semblance of dignity.

Then a young man, Kerry stole the show with his testimony about alleged atrocities committed by U.S. troops—most of which were imagined—and dramatically said, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to die for a mistake?”

He would then go on, without authority or official standing, to meet with North Vietnamese peace negotiators in Paris while Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was conducting official U.S. peace talks with the same people.

Back then Kerry had none of the power he would eventually accumulate after becoming a long time U.S. senator, Democrat candidate for president, secretary of state and now Joe Biden’s climate czar, with direct access to the president and a seat at the international power table.

Watching Kerry, I wondered how he would testify now before a Congressional hearing investigating Biden’s lack of response to the growing number of Iranian backed terrorist attacks on U.S. troops in bases in Syria and Iraq.

Would he go before a Congressional committee and now say, “How do you ask a man to be the first man to die in Syria? How do you ask a man to die for a mistake?”

The mistake of course is Joe Biden putting American troops in harm’s way without providing them the authority to fight back.

That is the case in both Syria and Iraq where U.S. troops have been deployed in an ongoing campaign against Islamic terrorists. They are sitting ducks.

And soon some young American soldier, possible Kerry’s age in 1971, will be the first man killed by Islamic terrorists at a U.S. base in Syria.  Who will be the first man killed in Syria? What will Kerry say then?

It is only a matter of time before an American, or Americans, are killed by drone or rocket attacks. Perhaps one of the many American bases will be overrun.

Biden, in his appeasement of Iran, has made American soldiers target practice for the bands of Iranian-backed terrorists who delight in killing Americans.

It is something young John Kerry would not have stood for. Now, a basic appeaser himself, he supports not only bowing to the Iranians but sending them billions of dollars as well.

No matter how many billions of dollars Biden keeps handing the U.S. hating mullahs who run the Iranian terrorist state, Iran through its proxies keeps attacking U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Syria.

And while the U.S. knows that the proxies attacking U.S. forces are financed, trained, equipped and led by the Iranian military, it is reluctant to make the connection in fear of upsetting Iran and starting a war.

The fact is that Iran is already at war with the U.S., but the U.S. is not even in a skirmish with Iran.

Some 50 U.S service members at several bases in the two countries have been injured by drone or rocket attacks fired by Iran-backed terrorist groups in the region. One American contractor died of a heart attack.

While there has been around sixty such attacks, the U. S. response has been pitiful even as Biden has sent aircraft carrier strike forces to both the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, as well as a nuclear-powered submarine with sophisticated missiles.

How do you ask a man to be the first man to die in Syria? How do you ask man to die for a mistake?

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.

US President Joe Biden greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week in Woodside, California last week. (Photo by Breandan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)