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Trump Pushes Syria to Take on Hezbollah06/29 06:09
As the White House has soured on Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon,
U.S. President Donald Trump has shocked many in the region by pushing an
alternative: Let Syria fight the Iran-backed militant group instead.
BEIRUT (AP) -- As the White House has soured on Israel's war with Hezbollah
in Lebanon, U.S. President Donald Trump has shocked many in the region by
pushing an alternative: Let Syria fight the Iran-backed militant group instead.
He has suggested that the battle-hardened and Islamist-led insurgents who
overthrew Syria's autocratic President Bashar Assad a year and a half ago and
formed a new government would do a better job of rooting out Hezbollah than the
Israeli army.
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has said he has no interest in doing so,
and has asserted that Trump's comments were misconstrued. But Trump has doubled
down on the idea.
Although it remains unclear how serious the White House is about the
proposal, the prospect of a Syrian invasion has raised alarms in Lebanon -- and
also in Israel, which regards al-Sharaa's Islamist-led government with
suspicion and has seized control of a strip of southern Syria since he took
power.
Syria has also become the site of rising tensions between Israel and Turkey
-- a main backer of al-Sharaa's government -- with each seeking to limit the
other's influence in the neighboring country.
Top Israeli security officials convened a meeting on the subject on
Wednesday, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Trump says Syria would 'do a better job' against Hezbollah
On the sidelines of the G7 summit earlier this month, Trump complained that
Israel's war with Hezbollah is dragging on too long and "too many people are
being killed."
More than 4,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since
Hezbollah joined the wider Iran war with a March 2 attack on Israel, including
hundreds of women and children. Israel says its strikes target Hezbollah and
that it takes measures to protect civilians.
"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," Trump said.
"I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. 'Cause to be
honest with you, I think they'd do a better job."
Days later, on the first day of U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland, Fox News'
Trey Yingst said that, during an interview, Trump had expressed disappointment
that Israel can't "put Hezbollah away" and said that he is "close to giving it
to Syria" because he thinks al-Sharaa would be more precise.
The White House declined to comment and referred to Trump's previous
statements.
Syria denies plans to intervene in Lebanon
Syrian officials scrambled to do damage control.
In a speech in Damascus on June 13, al-Sharaa said, "There are people
spreading rumors that Syria will intervene in Lebanon. This is not true. We are
calling for a permanent end to the war and the strengthening of institutions
and for there to be economic ties and a calming of the situation in Lebanon."
In a June 21 interview with the Emirati network Al Mashhad, al-Sharaa said
Trump's remarks had been misunderstood.
Trump "spoke about Syria's role in finding a safe and peaceful solution, but
the statement was misinterpreted as if Syria were going to invade Lebanon
tomorrow morning," al-Sharaa said.
He said Syria had "presented our vision for a solution to the United States,
which is to stop the war and address the negative effects on Lebanon and Syria,
and to find different economic, political and social solutions."
Syria's leaders say they don't want to settle scores with Hezbollah
Hezbollah, along with Iran, intervened on the side of Assad during Syria's
14-year civil war, while al-Sharaa was the leader of an insurgent group seeking
to overthrow him.
But the new leaders in Damascus have said since taking power in December
2024 that they are focused on rebuilding the country, are not seeking to settle
scores, and want to remain outside of any regional conflict.
After Israel and the U.S. launched their war against Iran -- which triggered
a wider regional conflict -- Syria made a point of remaining on the sidelines.
In the first weeks of the war, the Syrian military sent reinforcements to
the border with Lebanon, which officials said aimed to stop cross-border
weapons smuggling or any spillover of the conflict. At one point in March,
Syria accused Hezbollah of launching artillery shells across the border toward
Syrian army positions, which Hezbollah denied. The escalation stopped there.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told The Associated Press in March that
Turkey had interceded to defuse the tensions.
Al-Sharaa told Al Mashhad that "the decision of (Hezbollah) to enter into
the Syrian conflict was wrong," but that he was willing to hold a "dialogue"
with the militant group and even to mediate between different Lebanese factions
as they debate the future of Hezbollah's weapons.
Trump's proposal dredges up sectarian fears and memory of occupation
In March, U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack denied reports that Washington had
floated the idea of Syria intervening against Hezbollah.
But since then, Trump has begun to make the call openly.
Randa Slim, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based
Stimson Center, said Trump's proposal is, "at best, driven by a profound
ignorance of the dynamics on the ground."
"Syria needs to focus on a myriad of complex and daunting challenges -- not
least rebuilding a shattered country and repatriating millions of refugees,"
she said. "Syrian forces are far from a coherent military institution; they
include thousands of foreign jihadi fighters of uncertain loyalty and
discipline."
In the months after Assad's fall in Syria, there were several eruptions of
violence between groups loyal and opposed to al-Sharaa that spiraled into
sectarian revenge attacks, in which Sunni Islamist fighters affiliated with the
new government carried out attacks on Alawite and Druze civilians. The attacks
triggered fears of cross-border violence among Lebanon's Shiite, Christian and
Druze populations.
Many Lebanese also have bitter memories of the decades of Syrian occupation
of Lebanon, which began during the Lebanese civil war, initially at the request
of Lebanese authorities and with the backing of Arab states, ending in 2005.
The official who spoke anonymously said that Israel is also concerned about
some signs that Syria could assume its old role in Lebanese politics. But the
official said while Israel is closely watching developments between Syria and
Lebanon, its main concern is Hezbollah.
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