At Least One Muslim Country Loves America

Bush is currently visiting Albania - the first US president to do so - and has received an enthusiastic welcome. Many in the media, if they could find Albania on a map might be surprised not only because it's a foreign country (they all hate us, right?) but also because it's 70% Muslim. Of course until 1985, Albania was ruled by paranoid, xenophobic Enver Hoxha, a man who might give Kim Jong Il a run for his money if there was a "Least Cuddly World Leader" competition.

I think the warmth of Bush's reception is based on three interrelated factors. First off, Albania's traumatic experience with the "wonders" of Communism are so fresh - and the country still so desperately poor - that unlike elsewhere there is no knee-jerk lefty response; closely-linked is the fact that America is still seen as a force for good in the region. On a personal level, as the article noted, US programs (probably through USAID) are lending to Albanians - microfinance is one of the developing world's greatest weapons against poverty. On a regional level, the US remains a bulwark against Russian meddling, as with Putin's opposition to an independent Kosovo.

The Balkans have always been a playground for Russian imperialist/expansionist efforts. Prior to World War I, this was because Tsarist Russia feared the Ottoman Empire and later because (oftentimes wrapped in the veil of pan-Slav ideology) the declining Ottomans, the "sick man of Europe," was for Russian expansion. Russian and Austria sparred in the region (though not as far west as Albania) too before the Great War, again jockeying for control of former Ottoman possessions. After the Second World War, much of the region fell under communist (though not always Soviet) rule. Thus in a lingering Cold War sense, America is the regional Good Guy; the autocratic resurgence of Putin's Russia isn't likely to change that perception in the immediate future. (In fact, I'm wondering if such attitudes aren't prevalent in many parts of the former USSR).