NEW YORK - Pakistan's former Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani believes that the outrage sweeping across the Muslim world over the crude video insulting Islam and Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was the result of manipulation by Islamists and not a 'spontaneous' response.
"The mob violence and assaults should be seen for what they really are: an effort by Islamists to garner support and mobilise their base by exacerbating anti-Western sentiments," Haqqqani wrote in in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
“When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to calm Muslims on Thursday by denouncing the video, she was unwittingly playing along with the ruse the radicals set up. The United States would have been better off focusing on the only outrage that was of legitimate interest to the American government: the lack of respect—shown by the Egyptian government and other Islamists—for US diplomatic missions," he said.
"Islamists almost by definition have a vested interest in continuously fanning the flames of Muslim victimhood. Even after the recent developments that were labeled the Arab Spring, few Muslim-majority countries either fulfil—or look likely to—the criteria for freedom set by the independent group Freedom House," he added.