February 5, 2006

Guess who...

Here's something to think about. Remember, those offensive cartoons were first published last September...

...But who wanted or caused the heat to become so turned up and why at that this particular moment?

The clue to the answers to this second question lies in a second event almost certain to occur to today, if it has not already happened by the time this blog gets posted. This is the likely
decision today in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its programme of nuclear research. If that decision should occur, when the UN Security Council gets round to considering what form of sanctions to impose on Iran, guess to whom chairmanship of the Council will have passed. You’ve got it... plucky little Denmark.

Suddenly, the pieces fall into shape. The rumpus suddenly escalated, complete with fabricated offensive cartoons, to so enflame Muslim opinion that Denmark could be intimidated directly through a threatened Muslim boycott of its goods, or indirectly by the EU fearful of a wider boycott, into voting in favour of Iran...

"Plucky little Denmark." Yeah, well, they better stay plucky.

(From an interesting post by David Conway, quoted in an interesting article by Melanie Phillips, thanks to Patem Peperium...)

* Update: Scott looked into this and it doesn't look very convincing--see comment.

Posted by John Weidner at February 5, 2006 8:03 PM
Weblog by John Weidner