Former US official: Positive changes in Syria & Lebanon

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00:00And do you think Lebanon and Syria are as interested as Israel is?

00:05Yes, well, there are some positive signs on both sides, but very different.

00:10So I want to break down each one of them.

00:11On the Syrian side, you already have al-Shara, who has proven to be a very pragmatic leader.

00:17He is, whether or not, by the way, whether or not he's Islamist,

00:22and I was in the US government when we sanctioned him,

00:24I will say he is pursuing his future and the future of the Syrian state

00:29as in a pragmatic way, looking for opportunities to wipe debt,

00:33to invite investment, to have security, to push back on extremism like ISIS, and to rebuild.

00:39And he sees that, it's very clear that he sees that making peace with Israel

00:43is the single best move to make that happen.

00:46When he talks about, when you have the fact that it's been publicized already,

00:50that there are direct talks between Israel and Syria,

00:53this is a man pursuing these talks and engaging in this behavior

00:58in a moment that's very risky.

00:59He's number one on the ISIS kill list.

01:02So on Syria, you're seeing very positive moves.

01:04And Syria is also a very top-down system.

01:07That's what they're used to.

01:08Their system hasn't really changed yet in that regard.

01:10So he can do that.

01:12Lebanon is a totally different situation.

01:14It's much more bottom-up.

01:15And you have a lot of positive steps that show the degrading of Hezbollah

01:19and the undermining of Hezbollah following their decapitation by Israel.

01:23So, for example, you have the efforts to disarm Hezbollah.

01:26The fact that the airport has, in and of itself,

01:30taken steps to seize money.

01:32Just this week, they seized $8 million coming from Africa,

01:35headed to the south of Lebanon.