US President Donald Trump is publicly proposing that Syria handle the thorny issue of Hezbollah in Lebanon, arguing that the Syrian military would conduct the operation more effectively and with fewer civilian casualties than Israeli forces. Speaking at the G7 summit two days ago, Trump praised Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa (a Sunni Muslim and former Al-Qaeda terrorist) as "very capable" and falsely claimed he personally installed him, stating Syria should take over the responsibility of confronting Shiite Muslim Hezbollah in Lebanon in order to avoid Israel's further entrapment there.
Analysts warn that a Syrian incursion in Lebanon could re-inflame civil unrest in Lebanon as was the case in 1975 when Syria was tasked by Nixon-Kissinger with "stabilizing" Lebanon after Yasser Arafat's near seizure of power in Beirut. A Syrian intervention in Lebanon would indirectly strengthen Hezbollah's position by framing it as a resistance against foreign occupation.
Beginning in the late 1960s-early 1970s, it was official US republican policy to gradually cede Lebanon to Syria as a way to appease the oil-rich Arab countries (Saudi, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Libya...) who, at the time, were anti-western, anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, funding Yasser Arafat's PLO with money and weapons, imposing an oil embargo on the West, and dispatching thousands of radical Sunni Muslim clerics and terrorist operatives to western capitals to build mosques and madrassas.
In 1974, right after the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Republican war criminals Nixon-Kissinger leased the Lebanese file (and its PLO cancer) to the Syrian Assad regime in exchange for Assad keeping quiet on his Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. What followed was the 1975 War in Lebanon during which the Lebanese people fought to prevent Syrian-backed Yasser Arafat from seizing power and turning Lebanon into a substitute Palestine.
Another Republican crook, Ronald Reagan, packed his surviving Marines and fled Beirut like a coward after the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah alliance bombed and killed 241 of his US peacekeeping servicemen (220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors, and 3 U.S. Army soldiers) in their sleep near Beirut Airport on October 23, 1983. Reagan abandoned Lebanon to Syria and Iran which gained more ground: The Syrian army entered Beirut and the pro-western government of Amin Gemayel, which had negotiated the May 1983 peace treaty with Israel, was ordered by the Americans not to sign that treaty. Had the Americans (backed by the Lebanese Army, by the Lebanese government, by British, French and Italian troops, as well as by the invading Israeli troops) stayed and confronted Syria, Iran and newborn Hezbollah, some 45 years of torment, wars and terrorism would have been avoided, Lebanon would have been placed on a path of healing, and Israel would not have been exploiting the Hezbollah pretext to perpetuate its warmongering and land theft in countries around it. But contrary to their vacuous chest-beating, Republicans are liars and cheats and cowards: They launch wars to revive a US economy brought down by their domestic policies, and almost always lose them.
Yet another republican crook, George H W Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker the Turd again surrendered Lebanon to Syria in 1988 and 1991 in order to retrieve the US hostages held by Iran-and-Syria's ally Hezbollah and to induce Syria into joining the coalition against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Syria toppled the legitimate Lebanese government and completed its control of Lebanon.
Now, Trump is following the same policy. Israel's current incursion inside Lebanon is costly, both operationally and strategically. Faced with mounting anti-Israeli sentiment worldwide, Trump wants to shield Israel from getting further entangled with Hezbollah in Lebanon and from turning Beirut into another Gaza. To save Jewish lives, Trump's Zionist advisers want Muslims to fight one another instead. Hezbollah fought Al-Sharaa for some 13 years during Syria's civil war (March 2011 through December 2024), and it makes perfect sense to give Al-Sharaa the opportunity to score a revenge victory against Hezbollah by sending his troops into Lebanon to "stabilize" it.
For Trump to propose sending Syrian troops inside Lebanon to fight Hezbollah in lieu of the incompetent Israelis, there would be a need for a pretext. Just as Yasser Arafat tried to overturn the Lebanese government in the early 1970s and turn Lebanon into a substitute Palestine, Hezbollah's Naim Qassem is increasingly adopting a threatening posture vis-à-vis the Lebanese government of Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam, accusing them of treason for breaking the taboo of negotiating with Israel. With Hezbollah completely isolated (its Syrian lifeline has dried up now with Assad gone and Al-Sharaa in charge in Damascus) and weakened, its only last resort is to topple the Lebanese government and seize power. That would be the perfect pretext to send in the Syrian army into Lebanon to "stabilize" the situation.
Beginning in the late 1960s-early 1970s, it was official US republican policy to gradually cede Lebanon to Syria as a way to appease the oil-rich Arab countries (Saudi, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Libya...) who, at the time, were anti-western, anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, funding Yasser Arafat's PLO with money and weapons, imposing an oil embargo on the West, and dispatching thousands of radical Sunni Muslim clerics and terrorist operatives to western capitals to build mosques and madrassas.
In 1974, right after the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Republican war criminals Nixon-Kissinger leased the Lebanese file (and its PLO cancer) to the Syrian Assad regime in exchange for Assad keeping quiet on his Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. What followed was the 1975 War in Lebanon during which the Lebanese people fought to prevent Syrian-backed Yasser Arafat from seizing power and turning Lebanon into a substitute Palestine.
Another Republican crook, Ronald Reagan, packed his surviving Marines and fled Beirut like a coward after the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah alliance bombed and killed 241 of his US peacekeeping servicemen (220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors, and 3 U.S. Army soldiers) in their sleep near Beirut Airport on October 23, 1983. Reagan abandoned Lebanon to Syria and Iran which gained more ground: The Syrian army entered Beirut and the pro-western government of Amin Gemayel, which had negotiated the May 1983 peace treaty with Israel, was ordered by the Americans not to sign that treaty. Had the Americans (backed by the Lebanese Army, by the Lebanese government, by British, French and Italian troops, as well as by the invading Israeli troops) stayed and confronted Syria, Iran and newborn Hezbollah, some 45 years of torment, wars and terrorism would have been avoided, Lebanon would have been placed on a path of healing, and Israel would not have been exploiting the Hezbollah pretext to perpetuate its warmongering and land theft in countries around it. But contrary to their vacuous chest-beating, Republicans are liars and cheats and cowards: They launch wars to revive a US economy brought down by their domestic policies, and almost always lose them.
Yet another republican crook, George H W Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker the Turd again surrendered Lebanon to Syria in 1988 and 1991 in order to retrieve the US hostages held by Iran-and-Syria's ally Hezbollah and to induce Syria into joining the coalition against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Syria toppled the legitimate Lebanese government and completed its control of Lebanon.
Now, Trump is following the same policy. Israel's current incursion inside Lebanon is costly, both operationally and strategically. Faced with mounting anti-Israeli sentiment worldwide, Trump wants to shield Israel from getting further entangled with Hezbollah in Lebanon and from turning Beirut into another Gaza. To save Jewish lives, Trump's Zionist advisers want Muslims to fight one another instead. Hezbollah fought Al-Sharaa for some 13 years during Syria's civil war (March 2011 through December 2024), and it makes perfect sense to give Al-Sharaa the opportunity to score a revenge victory against Hezbollah by sending his troops into Lebanon to "stabilize" it.
For Trump to propose sending Syrian troops inside Lebanon to fight Hezbollah in lieu of the incompetent Israelis, there would be a need for a pretext. Just as Yasser Arafat tried to overturn the Lebanese government in the early 1970s and turn Lebanon into a substitute Palestine, Hezbollah's Naim Qassem is increasingly adopting a threatening posture vis-à-vis the Lebanese government of Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam, accusing them of treason for breaking the taboo of negotiating with Israel. With Hezbollah completely isolated (its Syrian lifeline has dried up now with Assad gone and Al-Sharaa in charge in Damascus) and weakened, its only last resort is to topple the Lebanese government and seize power. That would be the perfect pretext to send in the Syrian army into Lebanon to "stabilize" the situation.
The Lebanese army is a useless military force - it is a glorified police force at best - by virtue of the sectarian composition of the country. With a snap of his fingers, Qassem can order the Shiite Muslim soldiers of the regular army to abandon their positions, take their weapons with them and join his Hezbollah militia. An identical scenario unfolded in 1976 when the Sunni Muslim soldiers of the Lebanese army abandoned their positions, took their weapons and joined Yasser Arafat's PLO insurrection against the Lebanese state.
A final word to the Maronite morons (Phares, Harb and others...who think of themselves as a Lebanese lobby) in Washington DC who never learn from their own history of being betrayed over and over again by the US Republicans. They buy into the Republican lies of protecting Lebanon's Christians, only to discover, time after time, that the Republicans - particularly Trump's Maronite Catholic-hating Evangelicals - don't give a hoot about Lebanon's Christians whom they consider to be the cheapest commodity in the Levant. As soon as their warmongering swashbuckling policy reaches a stalemate, which it always does because of their stupidity and incompetence, the Republican administrations ditch the Christians of Lebanon (their allies in theory) in favor of weightier, more affluent, wealthier, oil-rich and/or more powerful actors (often their theoretical enemies) in the region.
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