Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said President Trump’s missile strike in Syria is a radical departure from his “America first” foreign policy.
“What’s really remarkable is that [it’s] about as far away from ‘America first’ as you can get,” he said Monday on CNN’s “New Day.”
“That’s America doing something unilaterally for what I call the good of the order, rather than a narrowly defined American self-interest. It was a remarkable flip from the man we saw in the campaign.”
Trump authorized the missile strikes last week after a deadly gas attack that the U.S. says was carried out by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
U.S. warships fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Shayrat Air Base near the Syrian city of Homs late Thursday, which was the reported origin of the chemical strike two days before.
Trump repeatedly warned against U.S. military intervention in Syria before entering office.
“President Obama, do not attack Syria,” he tweeted during one instance in 2013. “There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your ‘powder’ for another (and more important) day!”
Trump said last week he was moved to take action in Syria following reports the deadly gas attack there killed dozens of civilians, including children.
“Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children,” he said April 7 at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
