Krauthammer says Trump told the world 'America is back

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer explained what he thought was the most important message from the airstrikes on Syria that President Donald Trump ordered Thursday. He made the comments on the Friday on the "Special Report" panel on Fox News.

"It'll have its particular effects on the ground in Syria," Krauthammer explained, "it's a warning to Assad, and the Russians and the Iranians, 'you no longer have a free hand, you're gonna pay a price.' Next time it'll be a bigger price - all of that is important."

"But I think the most important element here," he continued, "is that the world had looked at this area and seen the profound abdication for 8 years where the United States had disappeared and also the beginning of the Trump administration, when the man who came into office, in fact who said only a week ago, 'I'm not president of the world, I'm president of the United States. We have to look after our own interests here at home.' Who gave an inaugural address where he essentially said, 'we are not interested in policing the world.'"

"And then this is a neck-snapping about-face," Krauthammer added, "which is extremely salutary. All of sudden as Tom said, the United States reacts and quickly unlike Obama where you'd have weeks of public hand-wringing."

"Remember when he came up with the policy on Afghanistan it took something like 8 months," he continued. "This is about 48 hours and America strikes."

"So I think that's the most important message," he concluded. "Particularly important for the Chinese, for the Koreans, for the Russians. America is back. And it is liable to react now. You no longer have a free hand. And that I think is going to change a lot in the world. From a single response like this."

Given the last word in the segment, Krauthammer reiterated what message he thought Trump was sending the world.

"What he wanted to do was to send a message," he explained. "He sent a message. He didn't attack all six oil fields, he could have. Shut down the air force. He just wanted to say, it's not that there's a new sheriff in town, there's a sheriff in town. There was an absence for eight years."

"America is back, and you're no longer allowed to do whatever you want," Krauthammer concluded. "That in and of itself is going to have a big effect."

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton had a similar reaction to the airstrikes, saying that the "Obama era" of American foreign policy had ended.

Not everyone was as congratulatory as Krauthammer and Bolton. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) opposed the strikes, and expressed skepticism in the conclusion from the military that Assad had launched the chemical strikes cited as the reason for the retaliation.

Krauthammer himself had said that the administration seemed to embolden Assad to the chemical attacks when they had announced that they were no longer seeking his ouster from power.