The Middle East would be better off with dictators Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafi still in power, Donald Trump insisted Sunday.
“It’s not even a contest,” the GOP front-runner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Trump said ISIS came out of the unrest after Hussein was deposed in Iraq, and four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya when Gadhafi was being ousted from power.
“You wouldn’t have had your Benghazi situation which is one thing which was just a terrible situation,” Trump said when asked if the Middle East would be more stable with the two in power. “But, of course, it would. Libya is not even– nobody even knows what’s going on over there. It’s not even a country anymore.”
Trump compared the “mess” in Iraq and Libya to the current attempts to oust Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. “It’s going to be the same thing,” he said.
Trump supports Russia’s newly launched airstrikes to fight ISIS in Syria.
“I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS,” Trump said. “I’m not justifying Putin, but you watch, he’ll get bogged down” in Syria. “He’ll be begging to get out.”
Hawkish Sen. John McCain, who has long advocated for more American action in Syria, discounted Trump’s position on letting Russia take the lead.
“I don’t think he understands very well the situation,” McCain said on CNN’s State of the Union. “And he’s entitled to his opinion. As far as other members of my party are concerned, all I can say is that, I know the realities. I have been there for years.”
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