However, it is always impossible to know what was possible. Therefore, Kerry is right in saying that he just does his job and history will define any legacy.
There is, however, one other metric. Does he help the President advance his goals. Here the clearest things that he does deserve credit for include that he was the key person in both getting Iraq to move to a more inclusive government with Maliki peacefully stepping aside and creating a coalition that includes many regional countries. It is also significant that about 60 countries have joined and the UN unanimously passed a resolution that will impede the travel of ISIS warriors and their finances. You might look back to the June coverage when Obama spoke of wanting both of these things done. To put it mildly, few gave him much chance to accomplish these things.
Whether YOU agree with those goals or not, they were Obama's goals - and Kerry was the man who led on getting them to this point. I watched the UN session Kerry led (as well as the later Obama coverage) and what was clear is that many representatives went far beyond diplomatic courtesy in praising Kerry's hard work on this.
There is also the fact that Kerry was instrumental in brokering a solution to Afghanistan's election. Again, YOU might have preferred he fail, the country go into civil war - on the hopes that the US would leave faster than otherwise. Here, again, what Kerry accomplished was American policy.
Not to mention, though you prefer to credit Putin, who had never previously had any intention to remove any Syrian weapons, Kerry was the man who negotiated the deal with Lavrov and when both the US and Russia tried to get a UN agreement more to their liking, worked with Lavrov to get a UN declaration that passed the UN. There is no doubt that this agreement removed tons of chemical weapons from an unstable area.
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