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Syria will intervene in Lebanon only if requested by the Lebanese government, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa reiterated in a televised interview on Sunday, dismissing any immediate intervention in his neighbor’s affairs after comments from US President Donald Trump.
Al-Sharaa told Al Mashhad news channel that if it serves the interests of both Lebanon and Syria, he is open to sitting down with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group he spent years fighting as a militant during the Syrian civil war.
Last week, Trump told reporters he had suggested to Israel that Syria should keep Hezbollah in check, because “they would do a better job.”
“(Trump’s) statements were interpreted as if Syrian forces would enter Lebanon tomorrow morning,” al-Sharaa said. He rejected any immediate intervention and instead suggested there could be “a positive role for Syria through Lebanon’s state institutions.”
Under former leader Hafez al-Assad, Syria dominated Lebanon’s political scene for nearly three decades until 2005. Syrian forces first deployed into the neighboring country during its civil war in 1976 — ostensibly as peacekeepers — but remained long after the fighting stopped and maintained a military presence that is seen by many as an occupation.
Al-Sharaa ousted Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in late 2024 and has pursued policies markedly different from those of his predecessors, favoring nonintervention, opposing Iran — which backed Assad — and seeking dialogue with former adversaries such as Israel.
“Lebanon needs creative solutions. We cannot keep going around in circles and choosing the same old traditional solutions,” he said in an apparent reference to Syria’s past military intervention in Lebanon under the al-Assad regime.
Still, al-Sharaa said Syria possesses many tools to “positively influence” Lebanon.
“Why is Lebanon always given a choice between a civil war and an Israeli war? Why isn’t there a third option?” he said.
