The effects of the one-party system Ceausescu built are still being felt today. But the mentality of Romanians is on the mend. Younger Romanians, who have grown up in a free society and studied and worked in the West, are beginning to return to the land of their birth, bustling with entrepreneurial energy and new ideas. Corruption, still a problem, was once accepted as the "grease of commerce" here. It is now criticized across the political spectrum and was the issue that proved decisive in the election of the new president. (italics mine)

Some critics say the Iraqi people are not capable of democracy. Many said the same of Romanians in the early 1990s. On the contrary, Democracy will succeed in Iraq--but only if the free nations of the West stand with the Iraqi people, support and help them the way we did the people of Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltics, and now Ukraine.

The people of Romania know that the road to a free society is long and it is tough. But as they will tell you on the streets of Bucharest today, democracy is the only way to go. If the world's free nations show the same steadfastness in Iraq that we showed in Central Europe 15 years ago, the people on the streets of Baghdad today will have the same opportunity to start their journey.