But the far more significant test is going the other way and it's producing some interesting results. A number of others have pointed out the curious fact that it took five months for the "outrage" to show up. This is largely the result of local imams (local to Denmark, that is) taking an international tour to rally the troops.
What is significant this is that the imams to whom they spoke have succeeded in fomenting sudden violence in such a number of places across Europe and the Middle East. The limitations and duration of that violence and the practical effects of intimidation will be exceedingly useful in the plans for next time, when the topic will not be cartoons but anything at all offensive to Islam anywhere in Europe. At that point informal Shar'ia is only one step away. The codified form can wait.
Indeed, the Islamists already have a victory in hand in the form of the fall of the Spanish government, in which an internal opposition gleefully took advantage of a tactical blunder on the part of the sitting government in response to a terrorist attack. It is precisely that sort of internal division that a militant and violent Islam can use to exert power beyond its actual numbers.
Europe as a whole will cave. The hold on government, academia, and the press by a class for whom multiculturalism is scripture is simply too all-pervasive for this incident to break, France being the extant example. That will leave individual countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands fighting the thing alone unless we can help them.
I have yet to see the BinLaden/Zawahiri tape release being connected to this "spontaneous eruption." It's been the speculation that these missives have been used as signals in the past.
"unless we can help them" please not again.
Reminds me of the Democrats - "outrage" for the sake of outrage only. All scripted and planned. Waiting for the right moment. Like Democratic "outrage" over things they supported or did when they were in power.