Now Is the Time to Reimagine Lebanon

I hadn’t been to Syria in 14 years. After the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, I couldn’t wait to make the two-hour drive from Beirut to Damascus and witness the end of this 54-year dictatorship. When I arrived five days after his ouster, I saw the elation of thousands of Syrians celebrating freedom in the largest square in Damascus and the anguished panic of those looking for missing loved ones at the infamous Sednaya prison.

The rebel victory hit home for me, too. It brought an end to a regime that had occupied my own country, Lebanon, for three decades until 2005, as well as the collapse of the Iranian axis that had effectively held us hostage since then through Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that was Tehran’s most powerful proxy militia.

Now the Lebanese face a historic opportunity for their country to stop being a battleground and finally become common ground — a united, functioning, sovereign nation. No matter how enormous the challenges, and no matter how critical foreign support will be, I am convinced Lebanon’s fate is largely in our own hands. Our first major step will be the election of a president in parliamentary voting scheduled for Thursday after two years of vacancy because of political paralysis.

Syria under Mr. Assad and before him his father, Hafez al-Assad, never considered Lebanon to be an independent country. As an occupier starting in 1976, it meddled in our elections, undermined our chosen governments, fostered corruption and threatened, detained and, many suspect, assassinated Lebanese opponents.

When the Syrians finally left 20 years ago, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite movement that emerged from resistance to Israel’s occupation in southern Lebanon, gradually replaced the Assads as the main power broker in Lebanon. The group became an essential pillar of the Iranian axis of influence that included the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and militants in Iraq, and enabled a land bridge between Tehran and Beirut, using Syria as a backyard to channel weapons and drugs.

The fall of the Assad government opens the door to establishing our relations with Syria on an equal footing. It would allow a new Lebanese government to finally ease the nation’s refugee crisis: Today an estimated 1.5 million Syrians live in Lebanon, making up a quarter of the nation’s population, who now finally face the possibility of return. The unraveling of the Iranian axis is also likely to help release Hezbollah’s grip on Lebanese politics.