Cartoon Controversy Contrived?

I have been thinking a lot about the controversy over the Danish cartoons. All the hooplah doesn't quite add up in my mind.

Let's review:

1. Back in September, an obscure Danish paper published a few cartoons that depicted Mohammed; noting that his message was being appropriated by fanatics.
2. As reported by Dry Bones the other day, those same cartoons were republished by an Egyptian newspaper in October. No hooplah or controversy erupted at that time.
3. In the intervening months, a number of stories gripped the press and began to make the Islamists look, shall we say, less then totally reasonable. These stories included the election victory by Hamas; the insane, intolerant and scary rantings of Iranian kook-in-chief Ahmadinejad; more relevations about the Syrian assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, etc.
4. Just as these stories were reaching a fever-pitch, suddenly the Islamic world explodes in an orgy of offended violence because of those obscure Danish cartoons. Like a poof of smoke, everyone stopped talking and writing about Hariri, Hamas and Ahmadinejad and started covering this vile offense against Islam.

Doesn't this look a bit too convenient? Just when the story would do the most good for the opinion of the Islamists among the apologists among us, the story surfaces. Too convenient for my tastes. Less convenient than contrived, I say.

Don't fall for it. The Islamic world needs to be pressed on its intolerance and violence.