ABSTRACT
In May 1990 President Ben Ali traveled to Washington, the first North African head of state to visit the United States (US) during the George Bush administration. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 until World War II, contacts between the US and the Maghrib were few and far between and of little importance by any standard. The pattern changed dramatically in November 1942 with Operation Torch, the joint US-British military campaign that drove the Axis armies out of North Africa within six months. US mainly provided Tunisia with economic assistance, as President Habib Bourguiba kept his country’s military down to a very modest size. US-Algerian relations are just the reverse of those with Morocco: Priority is given to economic considerations rather than political and strategic ties. Because of its successful anticolonial revolution, Algeria is highly respected in the Third World and is, among North African countries, by far the most influ ential in the international arena.
