The Question: John McCain's spiritual guide, televangelist Rod Parsley, calls Islam a "false religion" that should be "destroyed." Should McCain renounce Parsley? Will Islam be an issue in this year's U.S. presidential election?

That John McCain courts the counsel of Christian ideologues is not terribly surprising. Previous support-seeking solicitations at the steps of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University show McCain’s proclivity for right-of-center piety. Though it is unlikely that McCain would ever follow Falwell’s folly in calling Prophet Muhammad a “terrorist”, it is no secret that McCain is theologically misguided on Islam. McCain’s recent confusion in differentiating Shia and Sunni groups in Iraq and eagerness to substantially ramp up the U.S. war on Islamic extremists could combine for an accidental war on the whole lot of them. The unfortunate fallout of such a war footing is that McCain, like President Bush, often fails to nuance his rhetoric vis-à-vis Islam. As a result, the current perception of America among Muslims worldwide would only deteriorate further.

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The recent and controversial call by Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of the Church of England and spiritual leader of 80 million Anglicans, for incorporation of Sharia law into British law will not be the last utterance in favor of Islamic law. Nor should it be. The addition of Sharia law to "the law of the land", in this case British law, complements, rather than undermines, existing legal frameworks. The Archbishop was right. It is time for Britain to integrate aspects of Islamic law.

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Learning from the Danish cartoon crisis of 2006 and the Sudanese teddy bear debacle of 2007, the Dutch are preparing to preempt a Geert Wilders-inflicted pandemic of 2008. This preemptive approach seems to be paying off; reversing what looked like an inevitable widening of rifts between the West and the Muslim World. The Netherlands now know that outbreaks of xenophobia must be treated as any other pandemic threatening a population. In preparation for the outbreak, an early warning system must be established and at onset, one must quickly quarantine the ideological disease before it spreads further. With Wilders, the need for preparedness was great.

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