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Bush Compared Hungary to Iraq Last Week

Last week during his tour of Eastern Europe, U.S. President George W. Bush paid homage to the freedom fighters of the 1956 anti-Soviet revolt in Hungary, comparing the fight for freedom then mirrored the experience and challenges facing Iraqis today. Reflecting that the wait for democracy in eastern Europe wasn?t short, President Bush also noted that change for Iraqis would require hard work ? and said that success might not come right away. For history?s sake, it is worth noting the U.S. government of the time did not support the Hungarians in their struggle to throw off the Communist yoke.

The American president laid a wreath at a monument to the 1956 uprising, and spoke of the War in Iraq, a major issue in the United States as the country approaches mid-term elections this November. ?Iraq`s young democracy still faces determined enemies. Defeating these enemies will require sacrifice and continued patience - the kind of patience the good people of Hungary displayed after 1956. The lesson of the Hungarian experience is clear: Liberty can be delayed, but it cannot be denied,? said Bush.

President Bush?s trip to the territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire last week took him to Vienna on Tuesday for meetings with the Austrian Chancellor, meetings with E.U. heads on Wednesday, and then his trip to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. The U.S. president?s presence inevitably caused protests in Hungary, though rare are the occasions when any American president has been able to visit a country without some sort of protest against his presence there.