Danish Cartoon Controversy: The Aftermath

Interesting piece found via The Corner.

Very thorough and referenced account of what led up to the Danish cartoon fiasco and some of the shady characters involved.

Though I would note the story has the initial date incorrect during the height of the controvery, which occured in early 2006, not 2005.

On February 5, 2005, at the height of the tension following the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim protesters torched Denmark's embassies in Beirut and Damascus. While many in the West looked on with bewilderment, protests spread across the Muslim world, and stores in Muslim areas removed Danish products from their shelves. Even as the cartoon crisis captured headlines around the world, most people outside Denmark remain unfamiliar with the forces propelling it. Like the Salman Rushdie affair before it and the furor over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks at Regensburg University after it, the cartoon controversy had less to do with genuine outrage over the depiction of Islam's prophet and more to do with the ambitions, first, of a small group of radical imams and, later, of jousting Middle Eastern powers. Now that the dust has settled, what is the legacy of the crisis, not only for Denmark but also for the Western world?

Read it all.