The US-Israeli war against Iran is already expanding into Lebanon with an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon, but Reuters is now reporting that the Trump Administration is keen to drag Syria into the conflict as well, encouraging its Islamist government to invade Lebanon and fight Hezbollah.
Citing multiple Syrian officials familiar with the situation, as well as Western diplomats, the report is that the US began pushing this idea roughly when the Iran war began. US officials have been denouncing Lebanon as a “failed state” for months, and have cheered the Israeli invasion targeting Shi’ite Hezbollah as an Iranian ally. Given the Sunni Islamist Syrian Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government’s presumptive hostility toward Hezbollah as well, officials seemed to believe this would be a great chance to solicit Syria as an ally for their growing regional war.
The HTS however, is said to be reluctant to get involved in an invasion of Lebanon, not wanting to see themselves dragged into the unpopular sectarian war that has set the region on fire in recent weeks.
Tom Barrack with Syrian HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa | Image from X
That perhaps is unsurprising, as Syria is still in the process of rebuilding after a protracted civil war, and maybe isn’t yet styling itself as a conquering regional power the way the US seems to have hoped. US envoy Tom Barrack has suggested as far back as July that if Lebanon didn’t give in to demands to entirely dismantle Hezbollah, Israel and Syria would jointly invade and conquer Lebanon outright.
Lebanese officials have objected to the US position that Lebanon should be annexed into Syria and/or Israel, and Syrian officials say they have provided assurances to the Lebanese state that they will only take defensive actions as necessary and with respect for Lebanese sovereignty.
Tom Barrack claims that the Reuters report was “false and inaccurate” and that the US is in no way trying to convince Syria to invade Lebanon. Given the number of sources that have confirmed the story, however, it may be that Barrack is disavowing the failed plan after unsuccessfully trying to get the HTS to go along with the plan.
The HTS, for its part, has struggled with sectarian tensions since taking power, and getting into an aggressive war against Hezbollah would only compound those tensions, both internally and regionally, and would again give the impression that the al-Qaeda linked HTS is engaged in Sunni Islamist expansionism, a perception they’ve desperately tried to shed since taking power in late 2024. Staying out of the Iran war would certainly go a long way toward making that argument.
