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Despite Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa's public statements rejecting a military intervention in Lebanon against Hezbollah, recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump have pulled the issue back into international view.
While many worry about the danger of Syria intervening in Lebanon, the reality is likely different. I suspect that when Trump said that he hasn’t made up his mind yet, it actually refers to something else.
It's a choice of policy approach. He's weighing which one to back—the one suggested by Israel, or the one favored by Türkiye and Syria.
In his interview, Trump stated that he believes the Syrian army would be more precise in a potential military intervention against Hezbollah than the Israeli army.
This statement is not only a public humiliation for Israel and its reckless military engagements in Gaza and Lebanon, but also factually true.
Looking at all the military engagements and the military capacities of Israel and Syria, everything indicates that the Syrian army would be more precise and less destructive than Israeli forces.
However, this is only true because the bar is so low. Israeli military tactics in southern Lebanon are designed to be destructive. As statements from Israeli ministers clearly indicate, depopulating and destroying southern Lebanon was a political goal.
On the other side, the Syrian army has shown it can achieve real military successes with minimal collateral damage. But the Syrian army operated only in friendly territory.The incidents on the coast and Sweida indicate that an intervention against Hezbollah in Lebanon would be very dangerous.
Sharaa's public statements, along with several leaks and recent developments, point to a different model: Syria intervening not inside Lebanon, but around it.
The idea is that Syria, backed by Turkish and American intelligence, could besiege Hezbollah by severing its supply lines from the outside—no boots on Lebanese soil required.
In exchange, Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon and southern Syria.
Türkiye and Syria, with backing from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, would then use their leverage over Lebanese domestic politics to pressure Hezbollah into disarming. The whole approach rests on one assumption: that Hezbollah can be strong-armed rather than defeated outright.
For Israel, a withdrawal from southern Lebanon is a no-go. Despite Trump asking Netanyahu to do so, Israel maintains its opposition to this idea.
From the Israeli perspective, military tools and destruction are the only way forward. It regards any Syrian and Turkish role with great suspicion.
Now it is up to Trump to force Israel to withdraw or not.
So when Trump says he hasn't made up his mind, the real question isn't whether Syria will move against Hezbollah—it's whether he's willing to strongarm Israel into withdrawing from southern Lebanon and southern Syria.
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