Saudi crackdown raises spectre of wider spread dissent

By James M. Dorsey

Few paid attention to a rare protest in Saudi Arabia in late January 2011 as a wave of popular uprisings swept the Middle East and North Africa, toppling the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Yet, the protests and criticism of the government’s handling of floods in the Red Sea port of Jeddah in 2009 and 2011 play an important…