For the first time in nearly 30 years, Lebanon appears on the brink of becoming an independent democracy. Following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, a wave of massive protests and international pressure demanding an end to de facto Syrian rule over Lebanon are poised to achieve success. With the April 26 withdrawal of Syria’s 14,000 troops from Lebanon, the nation celebrated a turning-point in its history, but the road ahead remains challenging. Twenty-nine years of civil war and foreign occupation stand in the way of a stable democracy, and reversing the effects of this history will not be possible overnight.

Syria has held de facto control over Lebanon since 1976, when the Syrians intervened in Lebanon’s then one-year-old civil war. When the civil war ended in 1990, the Taif accords established a nominally-independent Lebanese national government, but Syria declined to withdraw its 35,000 troops or its extensive network of intelligence operatives and continued to pull the strings in the Lebanese government. The primary Syrian justification for continued troop presence was the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon, yet even after Israel completely withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Syria kept 14,000 troops in the country and maintained its extensive intelligence network.

Opposition to the Syrian presence in Lebanon has existed since Syrian troops first entered the country. However, until recently this opposition was limited to two of Lebanon’s four dominant sects, the Christians and Druze, with the Sunni and Shiite Muslims accommodating and—in the case of the Shiites—actively supporting the Syrian presence. The turning point came in September 2004, when the Syrians pushed through the Lebanese Parliament an amendment to the Constitution upending planned Presidential elections and renewing the six-year term of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. Following this development, Sunni leader and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri turned against the Syrian occupation—tipping the balance in favor of the opposition—and the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution sponsored by the United States and France demanding a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and the dismantling of all Lebanese militant groups, including the pro-Syrian Shiite Hezbollah.

Despite this sharp turn in domestic and international sentiment against their occupation, the Syrians refused to budge until the massive outcry following Hariri’s assassination in February 2005. Accusing Syrian intelligence operatives and Hezbollah of being behind the assassination—an accusation Syria denies—tens of thousands of protestors spanning all of Lebanon’s diverse ethnicities took to the streets to demand a Syrian withdrawal. As Parliament debated a vote of no confidence in the pro-Syrian government, Prime Minister Omar Karami abruptly resigned, and Syrian President Bashar Assad announced that Syria would be willing to negotiate a full withdrawal from Lebanon.

While pro-Syrian forces staged their own demonstrations in support of the Syrian presence and Karami was temporarily restored to power, after a long negotiation process Syria finally withdrew all of their forces on April 26. However, even with the complete Syrian withdraw from Lebanon, the battle to establish a stable and independent democracy in Lebanon is not yet over, according to Lebanese political analyst Nawaf Salam.

“An irreversible process has been started, but there is not yet victory,” Salam told the Harvard International Review. “Even more than the Syrian troops, we have to insist that the Syrian intelligence services get out. And then there is still the issue of fully implementing the Taif Accord, which has been distorted in the past 12-13 years. We have to revive it as a package and redress what was implemented in a distorted way, starting with holding legitimate elections.”

The issue of terrorism is no less important or immediate. Disarming Hezbollah will provide an even more difficult but no less essential challenge for the Lebanese. Under the Taif Accord, Hezbollah was allowed to maintain a 20,000-strong militia in order to fight Israel in Southern Lebanon. But Israel has been gone from Lebanon for five years, and allowing political parties to maintain private armies has long been an obstacle to democracy and a recipe for instability in countries throughout the world. There is little reason to think Lebanon will be any different.

But among Lebanon’s growing Shiite population, Hezbollah has attained mythical status for its role in driving the Israelis out of Lebanon. Moreover, because of Hezbollah’s status as a leading Arab voice of anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, any Lebanese who publicly advocate disarmament would be open to damning accusations of having pro-American or even pro-Israeli sympathies.

Nevertheless, the challenges that lie ahead for Lebanon should not detract from the achievements that have been made to date. As Salam put it, the massive anti-Syrian demonstrations in Beirut constitute “Lebanon’s Boston Tea Party.” The road ahead will be filled with difficult challenges, but Lebanon has taken the first steps towards becoming and independent and stable democracy.