Trump says he wants Israel to 'redeploy' out of Lebanon, floats tasking Syria with confronting Hezbollah
President Donald Trump said that he wants to see Israeli forces get out of southern Lebanon and floated tasking the new Syrian government with confronting Hezbollah during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
“Well, redeploy. It's another word because, we're getting along very well with Lebanon. Israel is dealing with them very nicely,” Trump said during the interview.
The president added that getting out of Lebanon would free up the U.S. and Israel to focus on Iran.
“It would be good to get out, I think. And I think you might see things get a little bit calmer because we have to focus our energy on the big leagues. The big leagues are Iran,” he said.
Trump then proposed that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa could possibly go and deal with Hezbollah — noting that he thinks Syria would be more precise than the Israelis.
“He would go in and take care of Hezbollah, and he'd do it in a different way. He wouldn't knock down buildings. I hated to see buildings knocked down,” Trump said of al-Sharaa, a former leader of a Syrian affiliate of the U.S.-designated terror group, al-Qaeda.
Just last week, the U.S. removed Syria's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism for the first time since 1979
“I think it'd be more precise, yeah, I think. And I can tell you. I know he'd like to do it,” Trump said.
