The thing that bugs me about a lot of this stuff is its disingenuousness. It purpose is to create a false issue in order to gain publicity or generate a distraction.

Someone mentioned the Ayatollah's Fatwah against Salman Rushdie (btw, if you want a great light read, I recommend Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories).

What most people missed about that incident was the fact that Rushdie was never the main point. At the time, the Iraqi war, economic hardship, and loss of personal liberties were feeding a rising wave of discontent in Iran. The 'Revolution' was losing steam, and the Government was getting besieged with questions from the public that it didn't have answers for. Solution? Khomeni issues a death sentence and puts out a contract on Rusdie for an obscure book that no one knew. They play it up in their media to first stoke the fires of public resentment towards western disrespect for Islam. Then they sit back and wait for the real fruits of this whole sham to develop. The western governments and media react with predictable rage and hostility towards Iran and the Ayatollah. The Iranian government jumps up and says SEE, THEY ARE ATTACKING US AGAIN. Viola! Iranian public no longer looking inward at what their government is doing, they're looking outward at the west, just where their government wanted them to.