Sending Syrian Soldiers to Yemen Would Be a Mistake

Excerpt

In June, U.S. President Donald Trump floated an extraordinary proposal to deal with Hezbollah: Syria should enter Lebanon and finish off the group. Few leaders had more reason to oblige than Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Hezbollah had spent years fighting alongside Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Even after Assad’s fall, the group continued to sow instability across Syria’s western border. Damascus had every reason to settle the score, and Sharaa still refused. He insisted that his government sought cooperation with Syria’s neighbor, not another war.

Four months later, Sharaa appears to be contemplating a foreign intervention, this time more than a thousand miles from home. Following Sharaa’s Oct. 6 meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Axios and Reuters reported that the Saudis were seeking Syrian military assistance against the Houthis in Yemen, where Saudi-backed forces have been battling the group since early September. This reporting suggested that Sharaa, with U.S. approval, might be inclined to accept the Saudi request and deploy as many as 20,000 soldiers, including troops for offensive operations. Washington is said to have approved of the plan. Other sources have claimed that approximately 1,500 Syrian fighters have already arrived in Saudi Arabia and that Syrian drone operators are present in the southern coastal city of Aden.

Ahmad Sharawi is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing on Middle East affairs and the Levant.