Beirut, Lebanon ? U.S. and French officials Tuesday called for an immediate Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, lending the strongest international support yet to thousands of anti-Syria demonstrators in Beirut who have seized the attention of the Middle East with their calls for “freedom, sovereignty, independence.”

With protests showing few signs of waning, Beirut has emerged as the showcase for a region roiling with political change and uncertainty.

Lebanese opposition demonstrators react during a celebration one day after the Lebanese government resignation in central Beirut, Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese returned Tuesday to a downtown square to demand Syrian troops leave their country, trying to keep up the pressure on their Damascus-allied president.

Two years after President Bush set out to remake Iraq “as a dramatic and inspiring example for other nations in the region,” there are growing hopes of reform and fears of instability across the Middle East. War, demands for democracy and the gradual transfer of power from an aging generation of leaders are combining to alter the political picture from Jerusalem to Riyadh to Kabul.

“It is significant what is happening,” said Tom Carothers, a democracy expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A day after the resignation of Lebanon’s Syrian-backed prime minister, Omar Karami, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier raised the diplomatic pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad, holding a meeting regarding Lebanon on the sidelines of a Palestinian reform conference in London.

With pressure building against him, Assad told Time magazine in an interview published online Tuesday that Syria plans to completely withdraw from Lebanon in “a few months” but provided no further details. Syria has had troops in Lebanon since 1976, during the turbulent Lebanese civil war.

In a joint news conference after their talks, Rice said the United States and France would discuss providing outside observers for elections and suggested the two had very preliminary discussions about the potential deployment of a multinational force for Lebanon if the Syrians withdraw.