Trump says world would be better if Saddam Hussein was still in power

“I will be so good at the military, your head will spin,” Donald Trump said last month.

This weekend, the presidential hopeful elaborated on some of his foreign policy platforms, and one seems to be embracing brutal dictators. Yes, my head is definitely spinning.

Trump said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that the world would be a better place if slain dictators like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi were still in power.

“I mean, look what happened. Libya is a catastrophe. Libya is a disaster. Iraq is a disaster. Syria is a disaster. The whole Middle East. It all blew up around Hillary Clinton and around Obama. It blew up,” Trump said. “People are getting their heads chopped off. They’re being drowned. Right now it’s far worse than ever under Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi.”

Trump said Iraq had become the “Harvard of terrorism” since the U.S. ended Hussein’s rule in 2003. “If you look at Iraq from years ago, I’m not saying he was a nice guy. He was a horrible guy but it’s better than it is now,” Trump said.

Beyond embracing dictator nostalgia, Trump also discussed more broadly what he described as “the Trump doctrine.”

“The Trump doctrine is simple,” he said. “It’s strength. It’s strength. Nobody is going to mess with us. Our military will be made stronger.”

“All I know is this: we’re living in Medieval times,” Trump added. “We’re living in an unbelievably dangerous and horrible world.”

Casey Tolan is a National News Reporter for Fusion based in New York City.