US President Donald Trump has suggested that Syria should intervene in Lebanon against Hezbollah, after weeks of speculation about this idea and denials from the Damascus government that it had any intention of getting involved in the conflict.
On Tuesday, Trump said that Israel had been “fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed”, saying that it was targeting apartment buildings where the residents were “not all Hezbollah”.
Trump criticised Israel for attacking Beirut and its southern suburbs, and said “If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, Syria will do the job, he’ll do the job,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
Since Sharaa led a rebel advance which overthrew former dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, relations between Syria and the US have improved.
Sharaa has met with Trump on three occasions, with the two men reportedly enjoying a personal rapport.
However, Sharaa has ruled out any intervention in Lebanon, despite the history of enmity between Hezbollah and Syrian rebel groups opposed to Assad.
“What is being circulated about Syria entering Lebanon is nothing more than rumours,” he said last week.
During the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed armed groups intervened on the side of the Assad regime, engaging in fierce fighting with the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups and taking part in starvation sieges of opposition-held towns.
Trump’s remarks about possible Syrian intervention in Lebanon have been received negatively in Syria, amid a lack of appetite for involvement in any foreign conflict after 14 years of devastating civil war.
Syrian author Robin Yassin-Kassab told The New Arab that it would be “very unwise” for it to get involved in Lebanon under the current circumstances, particularly if that action was perceived as benefiting Israel.
“It’s Syrians’ right and duty to fight Hezbollah in Syria when Hezbollah invades and attacks Syrian people, but it’s a very different thing to go into Lebanon to attack Hezbollah on its own ground for the sake of Israel, which is occupying both Lebanon and Syria,” he said.
“There is no way the Syrian government is going to do that. You can criticise Ahmed al-Sharaa for lots of things, but he isn’t stupid, and you would have to be stupid to do what Trump is talking about.”
He referred to the complex sectarian composition of both Lebanon and Syria, saying that an invading Syrian army would be perceived by Christians and Druze, as well as Shia Lebanese, as a Sunni jihadist force.
Under the regime of former President Hafez al-Assad, Syria intervened in Lebanon during the latter country’s civil war in 1976.
After the civil war ended in 1990, it continued to maintain a military presence, which became increasingly unpopular in Lebanon. It was forced to withdraw its troops in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri amid intense international pressure.
