Natacha Danon

The New Arab  /  August 11, 2026

Syria is under growing US pressure to intervene in Lebanon, but doing so would open old wounds and destabilise both countries.

Last Tuesday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said he had no objection to meeting with Syrian officials in a televised address, emphasising “the importance and necessity of positive, fraternal, cooperative relations”.

The declaration signalled a willingness towards diplomatic engagement amid mounting speculation around a Syrian intervention in Lebanon.

Questions about a potential Syrian invasion of Lebanon first arose in May, when the Syrian army deployed thousands of troops to the border.

Weeks later, Reuters revealed that the idea of a Syrian intervention against Hezbollah had been floated privately by the US last year, before being raised again after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in early March.

Then, in June, at the G7 summit, US President Donald Trump made a public statement on the topic: “If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone…he [Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa] will do the job,” he said.

In July, Trump reiterated the idea, this time next to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun during a joint press conference at the White House. Al-Sharaa would “like to come in and do something with Hezbollah,” Trump said, adding “he’s been fighting Hezbollah for a long time – I think he’d be very effective”.

Syrian officials – including Al-Sharaa himself – have repeatedly denied intentions to intervene in their neighbour’s affairs. In a poll earlier this year, a majority of Syrians – 63 percent – firmly rejected any intervention in Lebanon. Among their Lebanese counterparts, only two percent said Syria should play an active role in their country.

Most analysts say it would be a fatal error for Syria to intervene in Lebanon. However, some contend an intervention – if limited in scope – could also be an opportunity for both countries.

A potential Syrian intervention

Behind closed doors, the Trump administration is putting significant political pressure on Syria to intervene in Lebanon, says Ahmad al-Abdeh, Arabic Editor at Syria in Transition.

“An intervention is something that the Syrian government sees as something that it has to do rather than something that it wants to do,” he told The New Arab.

“However, what Trump isn’t saying [publicly] is that the Syrian government has put conditions on such an intervention,” Al-Abdeh notes. These conditions, he says, include arming the Syrian military, as well as securing an Israeli withdrawal from southern Syria based on the 1974 borders.

Within 24 hours of the Assad regime’s fall in December 2024, Israel invaded the 150-square-mile demilitarised buffer zone separating the two countries, violating a 1974 ceasefire agreement.

Since then, Israeli forces have been steadily expanding their military footprint in the southern provinces of al-Quneitra and Daraa, placing pressure on the nascent Syrian government.

What is on the table is not a full-fledged military campaign but a “surgical operation” along the border areas to stop arms and drugs smuggling, Al-Abdeh says.

“It’s not about eliminating Hezbollah completely; it’s about securing a large area along the borders until the Lebanese Army is able to take hold of them.”

Syrian forces would withdraw after disarming Hezbollah in the areas stretching from Homs to the outskirts of Damascus, he says, noting there is no appetite among any stakeholders for a long-term Syrian presence.

“Hezbollah doesn’t have to be eliminated, it has to be contained to a point where there aren’t any militias operating outside of government control,” Al-Abdeh adds.

“Hezbollah can turn into a political party…and that will create some stability where the Lebanese government and army will have a monopoly on the use of force.”

The political and economic dividends of a stable Lebanon would be immense for both countries, he says. “It would create a new reality in both countries, using a combination of both of their expertise and manpower.”

A recipe for disaster

However, Sam Heller, a fellow at the Century Foundation, warns any cross-border incursion would get “pretty messy almost immediately as the Syrian army would encounter armed resistance from local residents: Shia clans that are semi-militarised”.

“These clans have relationships with Hezbollah, but are not themselves Hezbollah, and they can’t necessarily be controlled by Hezbollah,” he explains to The New Arab. Last year, bloody clashes erupted between the Syrian army and some of these clans after the kidnapping and murder of three Syrian soldiers.

“Not only would a possible Syrian intervention in Lebanon be violent and messy, and likely inconclusive, it could additionally have destabilising effects inside Syria, as violence rebounded into Syria,” Heller notes.

Syria’s security landscape remains fragile. The Islamic State (IS) has carried out a spate of attacks since the beginning of the year, including last month’s bombings in Damascus. Other threats include former insurgents associated with the Assad regime, as well as Israel.

“A Syrian intervention in Lebanon against Hezbollah would result in a reaction by Iran and most likely its regional allies, notably Iraq, creating instability within Syria,” Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian academic, tells The New Arab.

Moreover, Damascus would first need “strong political allies on the ground,” Daher says. “Without a call from the Lebanese state for a Syrian intervention, like what happened in 1976, I don’t see any of these scenarios happening.”

In 1976, Lebanese president Suleiman Frangieh and other prominent Maronite figures called for Syrian intervention against Palestinian and leftist factions during its civil war. Syria would not withdraw from Lebanon until 2005, leaving behind widespread resentment against its repressive rule.

“People remember Syria’s nearly three-decade-long occupation of Lebanon, and they are not keen to repeat that,” Heller says. “There are also concerns about this new Syrian regime in particular, and what it might entail if this new Syria’s forces intervene in Lebanon.”

The Lebanese government has made clear its rejection of a Syrian role in Lebanon. In early July, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun explicitly said he had not “asked for a Syrian intervention,” dismissing claims otherwise as “rumours.”

“Aoun’s main discourse in Lebanon is about claiming sovereignty and the monopoly of violence, the monopoly of force,” Daher adds. “So it doesn’t look good when you have a foreign president calling on another government to enter Syria to disarm Hezbollah.”

The relationship of the Lebanese army – previously led by Aoun – with Syria’s armed forces is particularly fraught. Between 2013 and 2017, the Lebanese army engaged in periodic clashes with Syrian rebel factions along the Arsal-Qalamoun border. These factions included the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al-Qaeda affiliate previously led by Al-Sharaa.

Some of these groups took Lebanese Army soldiers captive and executed a number of them.

“For Aoun and others who remember that the idea of inviting a latter-day incarnation of Jabhat al-Nusra back into Lebanon is a non-starter,” Heller says.

Natacha Danon is a Damascus-based journalist with Syria Direct

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