During a press conference at the G7 meeting in France US President Donald Trump criticized Israel’s way of waging war against Hizbullah.
Video via FOXnews.
Partial transcript:
I tell you what – Israel is fighting Hizbullah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses and not all are Hizbullah. That I can tell you.
Trump does not say it explicitly but he is accusing Israel of committing war crimes. Fine so far.
But then he suggests to solve the Hizbullah problem by using Abu Mohammad al-Julani aka Ahmed al-Sharaa, the al-Qaeda ruler of Syria, to (re-)ignite a sectarian Sunni-Shia war:
And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hizbullah – ’cause to be honest with you I think they would do a better job of doing it. [….] Syria, you know, he’s pulled that country together amazingly quickly. He’s very capable. And he’s been very good for me. He’s protected – everything I’ve asked for he’s done. And if Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone he will do the job, Syria will do the job.
Just an hour ago another Israeli attack in southern Lebanon killed another four random people. The US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding agreed upon two days ago stipulates an immediate end to Israel’s war in Lebanon and a full retreat of all Israeli forces from Lebanon.
Israel’s prime minister Bibi Netanyahoo is obviously trying to sabotage Trump’s Iran deal. He has already lost the war against Iran which he himself had instigated. Now his political survival depends on continuing his war against Hizbullah. A war which his own generals are telling him they can not win.
Trump will have to squeeze Netanyahoo hard – by withholding intelligence, money or weapons – to end his conflict in Lebanon. The public offer by Trump to Netanyahoo to use the Al-Qaeda kingpin of Syria to ‘finish the job’ in Lebanon may be a his last chance to escape from the problem.
But there are complications.
I doubt that the current al-Qaeda leader of Syria will want to fight Hizbullah on its home grounds. He knows that it would be a very difficult war even with CIA intelligence and Pentagon weapon support.
Israel’s intelligence services will be reluctant to sponsor radical Sunni forces which will have sympathies for Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.
Turkey, one of the main sponsors of al-Sharaa, needs peace to find its economic balance. It will likely be against al-Sharaa taking up arms in Lebanon. Russia, which has a base in Syria, will also argue against such a war.
And who would pay for the adventure? Typically the US would ask one of the Gulf states – Qatar, UAE, the Saudis – to finance such an endeavor. But given their recent losses due to the war against Iran neither of those states will be willing to take the risk of again becoming an Iranian target by sponsoring a fight against its proxy forces.
I thus doubt that anything will come from Trump’s talk.
That still leaves questions:
Who did come up with that idea and who managed to sell it to Trump?
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.
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