Editor’s Note: Joe Macaron is an independent geopolitical analyst specializing in the Middle East. A former journalist, he has held fellowships at the Wilson Center and the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies, managed International Monetary Fund public engagement in the Middle East and North Africa, and served in various capacities in the United Nations system. He holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.

By Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow, Middle East Perspectives Project

Negotiations with Israel are reshaping relations between Syria and Lebanon in ways that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago.

Historically, Damascus and Beirut were politically aligned in confrontation with Israel, while Syria served as Hezbollah’s main logistical corridor. Today, however, Lebanon and Syria are pursuing separate negotiation tracks with Israel and adopting distinct approaches toward Hezbollah. This shift is weakening the strategic alignment that once defined their relationship while giving both sides greater room to pursue their own interests.

The renewed rapprochement between Beirut and Damascus seems pragmatic rather than transformational. High-level contacts have intensified, including Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s visit to Damascus on May 9, but these exchanges have not yet produced a strategic breakthrough. Deep mistrust persists, shaped by the long and complicated history of Syrian Lebanese relations and by diverging geopolitical priorities.

Still, both governments currently share several overlapping interests. First, they are seeking U.S. guarantees to restrain Israeli military pressure through negotiations and de-escalation. Second, they prefer limited security arrangements with Israel over full normalization. Third, both are increasingly concerned about Iranian influence, particularly over Hezbollah. Fourth, both face international pressure to implement economic and fiscal reforms in exchange for reconstruction assistance.

On paper, these shared interests would seem to create the basis for deeper coordination between Syria and Lebanon. In practice, however, coordination remains limited. Their policies increasingly run on parallel rather than synchronized tracks.

Parallel Negotiations, Different Priorities

Damascus and Beirut are simultaneously trying to prevent Israel from imposing new security realities on their territories. Yet the issues they are negotiating are fundamentally different.

For Lebanon, the priority is preventing escalation in the south and addressing border demarcation disputes. Syria, meanwhile, is focused on territorial integrity and strategic buffer arrangements after Israel expanded its military footprintin the countryfollowing the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

Israel no longer treats previous arrangements as fully binding in either arena. In Syria, Israeli officials effectively considered the 1974 disengagement agreement void after Bashar al-Assad’s fall and expanded operationsdeeper into Quneitra and Daraa while increasing influence in Suwayda. In Lebanon, Israel has disregarded both the “Blue Line” and UN Resolution 1701, replacing them with a contested “yellow line”deep into Lebanese territories as a security buffer zone.

In this sense, Syria is ahead of Lebanon in direct negotiations with Israel. The major difference is that Damascus no longer hosts meaningful Iranian military influence, which has allowed President Ahmad al-Sharaa to secure greater U.S. support for limiting Israeli escalation in Syria. Lebanon, by contrast, remains constrained by Hezbollah’s role and by the unresolved relationship between the Lebanese state and the group. Damascus’s experience also offers a warning for Beirut. Syria-Israel talks have not prevented Israel from maintaining operational freedom or consolidating leverage on the ground.

The Hezbollah Factor

Hezbollah remains the central factor shaping relations between Syria and Lebanon. For years, Syria provided Hezbollah with strategic depth, weapons transit routes, and political cover. Today, the new Syrian leadership is gradually regulating – and in some cases restricting – that corridor without openly confronting Hezbollah.

Public rhetoric between the sides has remained cautious. Al-Sharaa emphasized reconciliation last August and avoided direct escalation with Hezbollah despite the group’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. Turkish-mediated talks between Hezbollah and al-Sharaa’s Sunni militia, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, last December reflected a mutual interest in avoiding confrontation.

However, the regional environment shifted after Hezbollah became directly involved in the US-Israel war with Iran. Damascus increasingly aligned itself with efforts to prevent spillover and avoid becoming a battleground, and endorsed on March 2 the decision by Lebanese authorities to disarm Hezbollah. Syrian forces strengthened border monitoring with Lebanon and Iraq, partly to avoid Israeli strikes linked to Iranian or Hezbollah activity.

Reuters reported on March 17 that the U.S. has encouraged Syria “to consider sending forces into eastern Lebanon” to help disarm Hezbollah and to encircle the group. However, a direct Syrian confrontation with Hezbollah remains unlikely, as it could drag Damascus back into Lebanese affairs and ignite broader instability, while the new Syrian leadership is focused on internal consolidation. For now, Damascus prefers a strategy of management rather than confrontation: monitoring cross-border activity, restricting sensitive routes where necessary, and maintaining ambiguity. Hezbollah, for its part, has also avoided antagonizing Syria. The group does not require full Syrian alignment; it simply needs Damascus to remain neutral and avoid coordinating directly against it.

This balance remains fragile. If Hezbollah significantly expands cross-border operations or uses Syrian territory more aggressively, Israel would likely respond militarily, increasing pressure on Damascus to act. At that point, Syria could gradually shift from passive neutrality toward more restrictive measures against Hezbollah networks.

A More Transactional Relationship

The broader Syria-Lebanon relationship is also changing in character. During the Assad era, relations were defined by ideological alignment and Syrian dominance. Today, they are becoming increasingly transactional and administrative.

Border control, refugee management, trade routes, smuggling networks, and economic coordination now dominate the agenda. Syria is again positioning itselfas a regional transit hub, while Lebanon hopes to benefit economically from Syrian reconstruction and regional connectivity projects. Yet, more politically sensitive discussions remain stalled, most importantly on border demarcation after the cross-border clashes last year. Border demarcation implies new enforcement mechanisms, surveillance arrangements, customs controls, and restrictions on informal armed networks that have historically operated across the frontier as well as carrying direct strategic implications for Hezbollah’s logistical flexibility. As a result, both governments remain cautious. They seek cooperation where necessary while avoiding politically explosive steps that could provoke internal opposition or regional escalation.

Lebanese-Syrian relations today are defined less by strategic alignment than by managed coexistence. Both governments share an interest in avoiding escalation, containing spillover, and stabilizing their own domestic situations. But they are pursuing separate security calculations and increasingly distinct regional priorities.

Israel’s strategy has reinforced this fragmentation by pursuing separate negotiation tracks with Beirut and Damascus while maintaining military pressure on both, an approach that was reinforced last week when Washington hosted another round of Lebanon-Israel talks. Both Beirut and Damascus have embarked on a gradual process of institutionalizing direct mechanism channels with Israel before reaching security arrangements, while Israel appears increasingly committed to maintaining freedom of operations and separate “security zones” in both Syria and Lebanon.

The Israeli objective is to weaken Hezbollah’s regional environment and encourage both states to prioritize state interests over ideological alignment. Yet, their priorities remain different: For Syria, Israel currently represents a more immediate strategic threat than Hezbollah. For Lebanon, Hezbollah remains inseparable from the country’s internal balance of power. These diverging calculations limit not only Israel’s objectives but also the prospects for full coordination between Beirut and Damascus despite regular contacts between their leaders.

The result is a relationship that is cooperative where necessary but no longer strategic in nature. Syria and Lebanon are not moving toward a balanced political alignment; they are learning to manage parallel realities. Their relationship has become more flexible, more pragmatic, and ultimately more unpredictable.