"Since the recent events in Bosnia, Tito has sometimes been criticized for creating a Muslim nation. He had three reasons for doing so. It fitted in with his policy of checks and balances to strengthen the Muslims against the stronger power of the Serbs; it went well with his foreign policy of alliance with the Non-aligned Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa; and he hoped he could weaken Muslim fundamentalism if it became accepted that it was possible for a Muslim not to be a fundamentalist or indeed any kind of Muslim in religion, but a Communist atheist by doctrine and a Muslim by nationality. He knew that he would get no support from Muslim fundamentalism, even before the Ayatollah Khomeini denounced him as an atheist persecutor of Islam."