By Misha Glenny BBC Correspondent in Sofia

Bulgaria is allowing US planes to use its Sarafovo airport

This small Balkan nation has found itself mired in the Iraq crisis, along with the big players like the US, Germany, France, the UK and Russia.

As the last-minute game of diplomatic tennis goes into the tiebreaker stage, Bulgaria finds itself one of just a handful of countries which, officially, have wholeheartedly embraced the anti-Saddam stance promoted by US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But not all Bulgarians are happy with their country's resolute attitude. The celebrations last November were mingled with disbelief.

Mighty Nato had extended an invitation to Bulgaria to join the club. It might have gone unnoticed in much of the world, but this was no mean feat.

Predictions defied

Reviled under communism as the 16th Republic of the Soviet Union because of its dullard servility to Moscow's interests, in the first few years of independence after 1989 Bulgaria looked lost and frightened in the new world of markets and democracy.

Talk to almost anyone and it's as though the sky is about to fall on their heads

Furthermore, a country can not choose its neighbours and Bulgaria was unfortunate enough to sit cheek-by-jowl next to the former Yugoslavia and its wars.

As a front-line state it bore a disproportionate share of economic loss caused by conflict and UN sanctions.

In the eyes of foreign investors, Bulgaria was guilty by geographic association.

Bulgaria has quietly pledged its support for a second UN resolution

And yet in the past five years, the country defied all the predictions by bringing its military up to the Nato standard, even if it did suffer considerable privation on the way.

Along with Romania, another no-hoper to the north, the boy Bulgaria, as the footballing vernacular would have it, unexpectedly done good.

And this was certainly good enough to please the United States, whose support for Bulgaria's Nato membership bid proved decisive.

Then, with its borders secured by a guarantee from the most powerful military alliance in history, Bulgaria could get on with the parochial business of consolidating its democracy, reviving its battered economy, and making itself look beautiful in preparation for another marriage - this time to the European Union - planned for a few years down the road.

Springtime despair

And 1 March is an especially beautiful day in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

Everyone wears red and white cotton bracelets, lapels and badges, and they all sing the salutation, "Chestita Baba Marta! Greetings, Aunty March!"

Washington has marked down Bulgaria as 'New' Europe, and expects every New European to do its duty

Each Bulgarian will sport those colourful markers, representing good health and fertility, until they have seen the first stork (and, by the way, it does not count if it is in a zoo).

But this year, the glum faces and knitted brows in Sofia tell a different story.

"Now, we will lose the chance to join EU," says one despairing MP.

"This has put us back years," agreed another. Talk to almost anyone, in fact, and it's as though the sky is about to fall on their heads.

What had caused this pall of despair to settle over the otherwise chirpiest day of the year?

'Backstabbers'

It is partly that pesky Nato membership, partly Bulgaria's membership of the UN Security Council, and, like everything else these days, it is partly the impending war in Iraq.

Bulgaria's 'king' says the crisis will soon blow over

Washington has marked down Bulgaria as "New" Europe, and expects every New European to do its duty.

So Bulgaria, mindful that Congress has yet to ratify its Nato membership, quietly pledges its support for a second resolution at the UN.

The response from President Chirac, mustering all the Gallic indignation he can, is swift.

Romania and Bulgaria had better watch their step, as the EU does not look kindly on backstabbers worming their way into its ranks - or words to that effect.

The New York Times even runs a column excoriating Bulgaria (Bush's new best friend as the author puts it), by pulling out all the worst clich�s about the country and the Balkans.

Suddenly, Bulgaria is everyone's favourite banana republic to be beaten about the head with whatever blunt political instrument lies to hand.

Fleeting notoriety

Fortunately, when I raise the issue with the king, he is unperturbed.

I beg your pardon - when I raise the issue with the prime minister.

People in Sofia fear EU membership will be delayed

King Simeon, who fled the country in the face of Bulgaria's notoriously uncharitable communists in the 1940s, renounced his pretension to the throne in this republic when he returned to win a landslide victory at Bulgaria's last elections.

But although he is now prime minister, everybody calls him the king.

He is a lean, slightly melancholic looking man with the finely-chiselled, elegant features of the Saxe-Coburgs.

But his perspective on Bulgaria's sudden and unwanted notoriety is the right one.

This will all blow over fairly quickly, he avers sagely. And he is right, people will soon forget about Bulgaria again, unable to place it on a map or name its capital or its national heroes.

Battling regardless

And the Bulgarians will toil unnoticed, struggling in an unfair world where it is perhaps safer not to venture outside unless unavoidable.

As I leave the king's office, I notice the large, eye-catching sculpture which stands by the door.

It is made by local primary school children from bits of industrial waste, he explains, and is coloured bright silver.

"They chose the Spanish theme," he tells me, "because I spent so much of my life there in exile."

The figure is unmistakable - Don Quixote, the knight who battles on regardless.