President-elect Donald Trump has "big opportunities to make some climactic changes in the Middle East," and he sees the role the U.S. plays in world affairs more clearly than he did during his first term, former NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark said.
"I think now he recognizes [and] he knows what power is," Clark told CNN on Monday while talking about the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "He wants to be a global player. You can't be a global player by withdrawing from everything."
Over the weekend, Trump urged the U.S. not to intervene in the Syrian conflict, calling the country a "mess," but not "our friend" and called on the U.S. to allow the situation to play out as it is "not our fight."
But Clark told CNN that Trump has a "seat at the table" in the escalating conflict in Syria, considering the U.S. still has forces on the ground."
Clark said that means Trump still has "something to talk about" with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
Trump is also in a critical position to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, so "he's going to hold onto that for a while," said Clark.
"He recognizes that when he's dealing with Ukraine and Georgia and so forth, the world is watching," said Clark. "It's not just about Europe. It's about China, North Korea, and Iran."
And if Trump wants to "make America great again," as he's based his presidential campaigns on, "He can't do it by just falling back into the United States," said Clark. "It's not just about the United States. It's about our role in the world, and I think he sees this much more clearly now than he did in 2016, 2017."