Klausen contends that the controversy was deliberately stoked up by people with vested interests on all sides, and argues against the view that it was based on a cultural misunderstanding about the depiction of Muhammad.

"[5] Boston College professor Jonathan Laurence, co-author of Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France, has said that he told the press that it should reproduce the original Jyllands-Posten newspaper page that included the cartoon.

[8] Christopher Hitchens took issue with both the decision to expunge the cartoons and with the statement by the director of the press, John Donatich, who told The New York Times that while he has "never blinked" before in the face of controversy, "when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question."

Concluding, "What a cause of shame that the campus of Nathan Hale should have pre-emptively run up the white flag and then cringingly taken the blood guilt of potential assassins and tyrants upon itself.

Rather it was orchestrated, first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria.