latest two posts, which are quite extensive attempts - based on government documents and Arab media - to try to unravel the history of the controversy.

Two things stick out in particular:

1. Saudi Arabia was not particularly involved. Cole posits that Egypt was a more important instigator, as he looks back at newspaper reports from last fall, in the context of Mubarak's parliamentary "campaign", throwing red meat to Islamic and anti-western sentiment.

2. That the nature of the protests were actually quite limited and the majority of the protests were peaceful. Violence only occurred in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. And most of the other protests were quite small.

3. All the Arab newspapers he quotes condemned the cartoons as unfortunate and offensive, but none of them advocated violence and only a few advocated boycotts.

I don't really have a point to make here other than that it is important to know the actual nature of what happened before pontificating further.