Hanoi, Vietnam ? President Bush opened a visit today to the wartime capital of this once-divided country, a trip that is stirring inevitable comparisons between the unpopular war in Iraq and the divisive conflict fought and lost in Vietnam more than three decades ago.

Bush’s first event was a meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a U.S. ally in Iraq. Americans’ approval of Bush’s handling of Iraq has dropped to the lowest level ever – just 31 percent – according to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

Before attending a state dinner this evening, Bush was to drop by the headquarters of the Communist Party to talk with its general secretary.

Bush is the fourth U.S. president to visit Vietnam, where communist forces prevailed over the United States and a Washington-backed regime in Saigon in a conflict that claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. Bill Clinton visited Vietnam in 2000; Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon made wartime visits.

Bush and his aides have pushed back against comparisons of the war here and the Iraq war, now in its fourth year. Like Vietnam, the United States faces a determined insurgency in Iraq; both wars have demonstrated the limits of U.S. power.

President Bush has has his picture taken with a student after he spoke at the National University of Singapore. Bush spoke Thursday in Singapore before traveling today to Vietnam. He meets this weekend with other world leaders to discuss the North Korean nuclear situation.

Bush flew here from Singapore after warning a nuclear-armed North Korea against peddling its weapons and vowing the United States will not retreat into isolationism.

Although Republicans lost control of Congress, Bush directly challenged newly empowered Democrats, who are demanding a fresh course in Iraq and fearful that free-trade agreements could cost U.S. jobs.

Bush came to Vietnam for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders and individual meetings with a handful of leaders – all of them curious whether election setbacks had unsettled Bush.

Bush will draw on his powers of personal diplomacy in meetings Saturday and Sunday with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Hu Jintao, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun.

All are partners with the United States in talks aimed at persuading a defiant North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.