Trump floats Syria role in Lebanon as Hezbollah tensions rise

Donald Trump revived a proposal for Syria to help confront Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying at the G7 summit in France in June that Syria could do a better job against the group than Israel. The idea had already been discussed by U.S. and Syrian officials in 2025, then resurfaced around the start of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, when Washington encouraged Damascus to consider sending forces into eastern Lebanon to help disarm Hezbollah.

The plan has collided with a region that still measures foreign intervention against older wounds. Syria entered Lebanon in 1976 during the Lebanese civil war and did not pull out its army until 2005. The 1989 Taif Accords ended that war and ordered militias disbanded, but Hezbollah was left with its weapons under the logic that it was a resistance movement against Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. That exemption helped cement Hezbollah as a force that was never just a party, but a parallel military power tied to Lebanon’s state and its neighbors.

The historical bind runs through Syria as well. Hezbollah was supported by Syria and Iran for years, and after 2011 it fought alongside Bashar al-Assad’s government in the Syrian civil war. That makes the notion of Syrian troops moving back across the Lebanese border especially volatile for Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli leaders who remember how quickly cross-border deployments can harden into occupation, retaliation and sectarian mistrust.

Ahmad al-Sharaa has pushed back against any military role, saying Syria sought economic channels with Lebanon rather than intervention. He said Syria and Lebanon should pursue economic, political and social solutions, along with limited security measures, instead of a larger military mission. The White House declined to comment on the private diplomacy, even as Trump told Fox News he was “close to giving it” to Syria.

The proposal landed as the fighting around Lebanon deepened. Hezbollah fired on Israel on March 2, 2026, prompting an Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes have killed more than 4,000 people since then, and the war has displaced well over a million. Against that backdrop, a Syrian role is being read in Beirut less as a stabilizing shortcut than as a return to the regional power struggles that have repeatedly turned Lebanon into a battleground.