Ayahtollah Sistani and the cartoons

Once again, he has proven to be a calming voice of reason and moderation.

(CNN) [Iraq's] top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests.

"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," he said in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Tuesday.

Al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, suggested militant Muslims were partly to blame. He referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community and said their actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood."

This is also encouraging:

(Brussels Journal) Two moderate Danish imams, Fatih Alev and Abdul Wahid Pedersen, defended Danish values in an interview with the Saudi newspaper Arab News, urging for a settlement in the cartoon affair. The imams stressed that Jyllands-Posten, the paper that first published the controversial cartoons, had apologized for offending Muslims, that the Danish press is not under government control, that Muslims in Denmark are generally well treated, and that the boycott of Danish products in the Middle East also harms Danish Muslims.

Some good may come from this little temper tantrum yet.