Donald Trump has found the next genius solution to the Middle East: outsource Lebanon to Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda-linked jihadist better known to much of the region as Jolani, and ask his new Syrian state to “take care” of Hezbollah.
Speaking at the G7, Trump complained that Israel’s war against Hezbollah has gone on too long, killed too many civilians and made his Iran deal look bad. Then, instead of presenting an actual Lebanon policy, he floated the idea that Syria should handle Hezbollah because, in his words, Damascus might do a “better job.”
Israeli officials were reportedly baffled, with one telling Ynet the idea sounded like “virtual reality.”
They are right. It is virtual reality. Hezbollah is not sitting in Damascus waiting for Jolani’s men to arrest it. Syria’s only serious role is border control: blocking smuggling routes from Iran through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon. That is a policy. Sending Jolani’s men into Lebanon to fight Hezbollah is a regional explosion dressed up as a soundbite.
And the man Trump wants to recommend is not some clean reformer from a Washington think-tank brochure. Al-Sharaa’s new Syria has already been marked by identity-based massacres and sectarian violence. Human Rights Watch says killings of Alawite and Druze civilians by government and allied forces have defined parts of the transition.
Reuters documented the massacre of around 1,500 Alawite civilians by factions aligned with the new Sunni-led government, including former HTS militants and allied armed groups.
So Trump’s grand idea is effectively this: take a country already bleeding from sectarian revenge, led by a former jihadist commander struggling to control his own coalition, and point it toward Lebanon’s most heavily armed militia.
Brilliant. Hezbollah versus al-Qaeda’s alumni network, staged in Lebanon, while Trump calls it peace.
Even Damascus seems to understand the danger better than Washington. Al-Sharaa has previously denied any plan to intervene in Lebanon, while Lebanese and Syrian officials have warned that such a move could drag the region into a wider sectarian fire. Israeli analysts are not treating Trump’s idea as a military plan. They are treating it as pressure on Netanyahu, and maybe as a fantasy version of a more limited policy: use Syria to choke Hezbollah’s supply lines, not to invade Lebanon.
That is the problem with Trump’s Middle East brain. He sees groups, not states; deals, not history; strongmen, not societies. Hezbollah becomes a “problem.” Jolani becomes a “guy.” Lebanon becomes the arena. Syria becomes the hired muscle.
This is a barstool foreign policy pitch with nuclear consequences.
