Imam Rauf said that he would not have proposed his Islamic Centre had he anticipated the furore that has resulted. "I would never have done it."
Imam Rauf also said the following in an interview with Soledad O'Brien on
CNN: Larry King Live:
..........."O'BRIEN: --though, right, isn't that causing to some degree an instability and a risk, a risk of safety? I mean, there's an address now that has become the flash point for a lot of anger. Isn't that a risk to Muslims and Americans?
RAUF: There is a certain anger here, no doubt. But if you don't do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world.
If this is not handled correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis, which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world. And we have a much larger footprint in the Muslim world. If we don't handle this crisis correctly, it could become something which could really become very, very, very dangerous indeed. ".........