President Donald Trump's nine-day trip abroad "put America back on the world stage," retired Army Gen. Jack Keane said Saturday.
"From a strategic perspective," Keane told "The Larry Kudlow Show" on Cumulus Media, Trump was "exercising global leadership once again, promoting stability and security where the economic prosperity will be the byproduct."
President Trump returned Saturday after touring Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium. He declared the trip a "home run" in a speech to the U.S. military at the Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily.
"Our travels took us to some of the holiest sites in the three Abrahamic religions and to gatherings of both America’s oldest and newest friends," Trump said.
"We traveled the world to strengthen long-standing alliances and to form a new partnership among nations devoted to the task of eradicating the terrorism that plagues our planet."
Keane, 74, a retired four-star general who now chairs the Institute for the Study of War, specifically pointed to President Trump's "straight" talk to Mideast leaders in Saudi Arabia earlier this week.
"He's done something that no one else has done: If you’re going to deal with these major threats in the Middle East, then you've got to form an alliance.
"There was President Trump with 55 Arab, Muslim and North African leaders in attendance, appealing to them to come together in an alliance to stand up and counter the Iranian strategic threat.
"He identified it as the No. 1 threat in the region," Keane said. "It is a tremendous step in the right direction."
Regarding radical Islam, he said that Trump called on the leaders to drive terrorists out of safe havens in their countries, stop financial such activity and "undermine this ideology."
"You and your leaders have to do that," Keane said the president told the leaders. "You have to give them an alternative to the choices they're making in radicalizing themselves – and we cannot do that for you.
"That is something that you must do yourselves.
"No American president has ever talked that straight to that part of the world," he told Kudlow.
Keane said that his intelligence sources told him that the response to President Trump's message was "overwhelmingly positive."
"They are enthused that American leadership is taking such a strong stand on their behalf and is willing to stand up with them as partners against the two major threats that they have: the Iranians and radical Islamists."
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