The news that Pres­i­dent George W. Bush has con­verted to Islam is not the strangest news of the polit­i­cal sea­son (one thinks of the recent report that Hilary Clin­ton had a sex change oper­a­tion in the early sev­en­ties). But, it is cer­tainly one that will have the most far-reaching impli­ca­tions for U.S. for­eign pol­icy, not least after the Wash­ing­ton Post revealed over the week­end that Mr. Bush has been secretly instructed in his new faith, over the last six months, by Iran­ian pres­i­dent, Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad.  Israel in par­tic­u­lar is con­sid­ered to be in an awk­ward posi­tion –reluc­tant to alien­ate a sit­ting U.S. pres­i­dent, but, equally, unsure of whether the Jew­ish state can really over­look the obvi­ous impli­ca­tions, espe­cially as Pres­i­dent Bush has announced at a press con­fer­ence that he intends to attend the Haj next year.  Israel’s prob­lem is par­tic­u­larly acute, as it was thought last year that Mr. Bush was about to con­vert to Judaism.  At that time, he had had a cir­cum­ci­sion per­formed at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter.  As things have turned out, that oper­a­tion will still serve him in good stead.

In the mean­while, there are seri­ous ques­tions about what Mr. Bush’s con­ver­sion will mean for domes­tic pol­i­tics.  Some Wash­ing­ton pun­dits have spec­u­lated that it was actu­ally a cyn­i­cal strat­egy devised by the Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee to cap­ture a larger share of the Black vote; but, oth­ers have noted that it would simul­ta­ne­ously alien­ate the Chris­t­ian right.  Still oth­ers, seek­ing inti­ma­tions of Mr. Bush’s con­ver­sion in his pre-presidential days, pointed out that he had always favored ston­ing as a form of exe­cu­tion when he was gov­er­nor of Texas.