The resignation of pro-Syrian government leaders in Lebanon represents a significant opportunity for the Lebanese people to end the 30-year Syrian occupation of their country and expand the movement toward democracy in the Middle East, said a Duke University public policy professor.
"It is important for everyone who believes in the rights of nations to self-determination to support the effort to get Syrian troops out of Lebanon," said Bruce Jentleson, director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke and an expert on the Middle East.
Lebanon's prime minister, Omar Karami, resigned Monday after a no-confidence debate in the Lebanese parliament and large-scale public protests prompted by the car-bomb assassination of former prime minister and opposition figure Rafik Hariri two weeks ago.
The work of choosing new leadership is "up to the Lebanese people, and we should support their efforts through diplomacy, public statements and quiet aid to the opposition," Jentleson said.
Events in Lebanon also offer the United States an opportunity to strengthen strained relationships with its European allies, said Jentleson, a member of the 2004 Presidential Study Group of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a bipartisan panel that developed Middle East policy recommendations for the current Bush administration.
"So often, the United States and our European allies are not on the same page in the Middle East. This presents an opportunity for us to find common ground in supporting the Lebanese drive toward reform and democratization," said Jentleson, who also served as a foreign policy adviser to former Vice President Al Gore and the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign.
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