الصحفي اللبناني قاسم يوسف لشطرنج: الرئيس أحمد الشرع تلقى عرضاً أميركياً للتوغل في لبنان ومن ثم تعرض لضغوط أميركية -إسرائيلية للمشاركة في الحرب ولكنه رفض واستعان بتركيا والسعودية للخروج من هذا المخطط.

Lebanese journalist Qassem Youssef:

President Ahmad Al-Sharaa is handling this issue with exceptional seriousness and responsibility. I learned that about six months ago, a U.S. envoy was sent to him and told him explicitly that he could carry out a five-kilometer incursion into Lebanese border areas to “clean them up.” At first, the proposal was presented as something he was able to do, but he did not act on it.

When the war began, Israel exerted intense pressure through the United States to draw the Syrian army into a confrontation with Hezbollah, but he refused. We all remember the strikes that took place in Damascus and in Jabal al-Arab, which were framed as the Israeli army defending the Druze during the current phase of the war. In reality, this was part of a maximum-pressure campaign on Ahmad Al-Sharaa to force him into the conflict, and he still refused.

Instead, he turned to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Both countries engaged with the United States at a very high level to help spare Syria’s new leadership under Al-Sharaa from being pulled into Lebanon. He presented a long-term strategy, stating clearly: “I am not in a position right now to enter Lebanon. My priority is Syria, its unity, its stability, and its prosperity.”

الشرع رفض عرضاً أميركياً للتوغل في لبنان وواجه ضغوطاً أميركية إسرائيلية للمشاركة في الحرب، مستعيناً بتركيا والسعودية لتفادي التصعيد | Sharaa declined U.S. proposal for Lebanon incursion, resisted US-Israeli pressure to join war and seeked support from Türkiye & Saudi to avoid escalation