NEXT YEAR IN TEHRAN:

Bush touts freedom as he ends European trip: President aims to fight terrorism with "freedom agenda" (Chicago Tribune, 6/12/07)

Facing waves of those who adore him and those who spurn him, President Bush has completed a weeklong trek across Eastern Europe with a nod to allies in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, casting those conflicts as part of a global quest for freedom.

From the Balkans to the Baltic states over the last few years, Bush has pressed an argument for liberty as the antidote to terrorism, articulating a "freedom agenda" for the U.S. and its allies. And as he passed through Prague in the Czech Republic during this trip, meeting with dissidents from around the world, Bush depicted himself as the "dissident president.

"We share values, and we believe in freedom," Bush said Monday, standing alongside Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov in a nation that held its first democratic elections in 1991. "We have accepted our obligations to defend society from extremists and terrorists — and it's hard work," he said.

A Reaganesque trip, but as the Gipper's final big one was to deliver such a message in Moscow, so ought W's last one be to states not yet fully Reformed.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 12, 2007 5:57 AM