President Trump said on Monday that there is “legitimate peace in the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years,” comments that came after three Americans, including two National Guard members and a civilian interpreter, were killed in Syria.
The president made the remark when asked why the US has troops in Syria. “Because we’re trying to make sure that there’s going to be and remain peace in the Middle East, and Syria is a big part of it,” he said.
“The new leader is a strong person, and that’s what you need,” Trump said, referring to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda commander who took power in Damascus after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.
“It’s been amazing what — what’s taken place in Syria. We got rid of Assad,” Trump said, acknowledging a US role in the regime change that put Sharaa’s group of jihadists, known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in power. The three Americans were killed on Saturday by a member of Syria’s security forces.
“We got rid of other people that were really bad people and that were in the way of peace in the Middle East. You know, we have legitimate peace in the Middle East, first time in 3,000 years, and we have 59 countries backing it, and we’ll see what happens with Hamas,” Trump said, referring to the Gaza ceasefire deal, which Israel has continued to violate by killing nearly 400 Palestinians since it went into effect.
Israel has also continued to violate a ceasefire deal in Lebanon signed in November 2024 with near-daily strikes, surveillance flights, and ground incursions. “Hezbollah in Lebanon has been a problem. We’ll see what happens there,” Trump said.
The president appeared to be arguing that it was necessary for the US to be involved in the Middle East to maintain “peace,” and also referenced the 12-day US-Israel war on Iran, which killed over 1,000 Iranians, as an example of US action in the region. “If we didn’t knock out there nuclear capability, we would have never had peace,” he said.
