Coming from the US, I tend to think that when people talk about being "inspired by the US example in <fill in the blank>" they are flattering us. But I can at least expect they may have heard of, for example, the Declaration of Independence or the American Revolution.

But the tendency for Foreign Policy Ministers to flatter whatever host they happen to be with gets a lot funnier when they are in much less well know locales. Take a look: (from this African paper)

The Secretary of State Affairs in the Ukraine, Alexander Zintchiko, personal envoy of the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko was received by Libya's Colonel Muammar Qaddafi on Monday.

The Ukrainian envoy delivered a letter from the president of Ukraine, in which he stressed that the "people's revolution" in the Ukraine was inspired by the principles and thoughts of the Libyan Revolution, and that his country attaches great importance to political dialogue with Libya at the highest levels. This was reported by Libya's state-run news agency.

I'll personally give the author $100 if he can find 20 Ukrainians among the 6 million in Kyiv who even know the basic details of the Libyan Revolution.

[Technical note: Even if they were only inspired by the "principles and thoughts" of the Libyan Revolution, you have to dumb it down to "independence is good, foreign control bad" before you get any real agreement.]