President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Syria should take over from Israel the targeting of Hezbollah is “misguided,” according to a former top Pentagon official.
Trump reiterated that idea on Tuesday morning, saying, “I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. Because, to be honest with you, I think they’d do a better job of doing it,” and adding, “If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, Syria will do the job.”
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The president said in an NBC interview earlier this month that Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is a “very good leader who has really done a good job in a short period of time,” adding that he would “love to help,” but al Sharaa, for his part, denied that Syria would get involved.
Dana Stroul, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East during the Biden administration, told the Washington Examiner: “This is a misguided idea that will lead to more war and instability. Trump wants a quick fix for disarming Hezbollah, and is losing confidence in the Lebanese army and Beirut government. Syrian President al Sharaa has made clear repeatedly that he has no intention of sending Syria’s forces into its neighbor’s territory, because he understands the risks to Syria’s recovery and to the prospect of a renewed civil war in Lebanon.”
Trump, in those remarks, put pressure on Israel for civilian casualties in Lebanon without commenting on Hezbollah’s continued attacks on Israeli troops and in northern Israel. The 2024 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire included a provision calling for Hezbollah to move fighters and weapons north of the Litani River, which runs parallel to the Israel-Lebanon border, and would create what would be a roughly 20-mile buffer zone, but Hezbollah has not complied, and the Lebanese Armed Forces have been unable to do so through force.
Hezbollah broke the ceasefire to restart attacks on Israel during the start of the Iran war, and Israel retaliated with a ground invasion to further degrade Hezbollah. The continued Israeli strikes in response to Hezbollah attacks, which could incur an Iranian response as well, threaten to derail the deal that the president has sought for months.
The president’s comments, even without al-Sharaa’s support, highlight the changes that have come to the region in recent years. Former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad was a close ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, and Assad allowed his country to be used as a land bridge, along with Iraq, to allow for the transportation of personnel, weapons, and more all the way from Lebanon to Iran.
Given their strong ties, Hezbollah came to Assad’s defense during the Syrian civil war, though they didn’t come to aid as his regime collapsed in December 2024, though they had already been at war with Israel at that time.
“Trump needs to revisit recent history when Iran directed Lebanese Hezbollah fighters into Syria to protect the Bashar Al-Assad regime. Hezbollah and Iran inflicted terrible atrocities on the Syrian people, which the region has not forgotten. Now, with new leadership in Damascus that overthrew the Iran-backed Assad, the notion of deploying Sunni fighters from the new Syrian government into Lebanon to disarm a Shia terrorist group risks reigniting sectarian bloodletting, exposes the United States to accusations of orchestrating violations of Syrian and Lebanese sovereignty, and puts at risk the very Syrian stability that is the goal of US policy,” added Stroul, who recently published an essay in Foreign Affairs about the new landscape in the region.
Trump’s comments also illuminate his growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the way the Israeli military is conducting operations against Hezbollah, even as the Iranian proxy continues to attempt to carry out attacks on northern Israel or against Israeli troops in Lebanon.
“Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed,” Trump said Tuesday. “And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.”
Stroul warned that Trump’s “more critical” rhetoric toward Israel compared to Hezbollah and Iran “will result in an emboldened Hezbollah and a refreshed Axis of Resistance across the Middle East.”
Iran has demanded that an agreement to end the U.S.-Iran war has to include an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, but a senior U.S. administration official told reporters on Monday: “It will not be a one-way ceasefire, meaning that if Iran is not able to control Hezbollah, and if they attack Israeli positions or Israeli towns, Israel will have the right to defend themselves and respond.”
