BUDAPEST, Hungary — America needs to employ more diplomacy — and more restraint in the use of power in situations such as Iraq, Governor Pataki stated here yesterday.

The governor, whose grandfather was a farmer in Hungary, heads the American delegation that is here to participate in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. His comments, including some spontaneous use of Hungarian, at the George Soros-founded Central European University were in response to questions about America’s much debated role on today’s global political scene, and they could signal how Mr. Pataki will approach foreign policy issues in his nascent presidential campaign.

“We are the United States, a very powerful country,” Mr. Pataki said.”We have to be circumspect in using that power and try to do it after an intelligent dialogue and engaging other countries respectfully. I am kind of tall, so when they take pictures I generally try to stand in the back.” The governor allowed that winning allies’ support isn’t always the easiest thing to do, especially in times of crises.

Mr. Pataki contended that it is easy for America’s Western allies or Russia and China to say no to American initiatives. That’s because America now — unlike in 1956 when the world was divided between democracy and countries behind the Iron Curtain — is the world’s sole superpower, and that places “not an added opportunity but an added burden” on it.

It would be a lot harder for these countries “to say no to the Iraqi government, to the Iraqi people, who voted and held up those purple thumbs showing a willingness to risk their lives for the right that we take for granted to go vote,” the governor said.

Thus it would be effective diplomacy, according to Mr. Pataki, to have the Iraqi government “go out to countries like Germany and France and Russia and China and say, ‘Help us. Help us to turn the lights back on. Help us to make sure people have water. Help us to make sure communities have a sense of prosperity and opportunity in the future,’ so the United States can take a step back.”

Mr. Pataki also addressed the questions posed by the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Authority’s general elections in January, as it ties in to the broader war on terror America now is waging. First, “it’s unfortunate, but we cannot look to overturn this election,” he said. “On the other hand, understanding they are a terrorist organization, we have got to stand up and say we are not going to help that government at all.” America, Mr. Pataki said, is going to use “all of its power to try to get everyone who respects freedom to also not help that government so that government fails.”

The U.S. should try to make sure that the democratic institutions that allowed Hamas to win stay in place so Hamas can lose when it fails, Mr. Pataki said,”as they evidently will because they cannot govern.” Mr. Pataki predicted that Hamas will fall of its own weight unless it manages to undermine the democratic institutions that allowed it to win.

While Mr. Pataki, whose fourth term runs out at the end of this year, was addressing an enthusiastic audience, large, occasionally violent demonstrations took place outside against Hungary’s Socialist government reelected this past spring that has recently introduced draconian austerity measures. Mr. Pataki’s host is CEU’s chief operating officer, the former Socialist Finance Minister Lajos Bokros, whose austerity package in 1995 led to his removal and to the ultimate loss of power by his party in 1998 for four years.

The double-digit budget deficit problems Hungary is grappling with are similar to what New York State faced in 1995. “New York was failing,” Mr. Pataki said. “What we had to do was reduce the size of the government, [and] we raised the tuition at the State University.” His words drew laughter, as the audience remembered all to well that it was precisely such steps, most notably the tuition rise, that were the hallmarks of the Bokros package and are still often mentioned by opposition politicians at mass demonstrations.