Donald Trump wants to stop the United States from "nation building" — with the exception being "If there's a problem going on in the world and you can solve the problem," The Guardian reports. "We have to straighten out our own house. We can't go around to every country that we're not exactly happy with and say we're going to recreate them," Trump said.
Trump added that the U.S. may have gone too far in backing the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2006:
Referring to Iraq, he said: "We're nation-building. We can't do it. We have to build our own nation. We're nation-building, trying to tell people who have [had] dictators or worse for centuries how to run their own countries."
"Look what's happened in Iraq. We got rid of Saddam Hussein. I don't think that was a helpful thing. Iraq is a disaster right now and it's going to be taken over by Iran and ISIS, so I think we have to focus on ourselves." [The Guardian]
At the same time, Trump sees the current situation in the Middle East as an exception to his rule. "There are certain cases where you see things going on, atrocities going on, that are horrible," Trump told The Guardian. "ISIS is one of them."