In many Middle Eastern states, cartoons are powerful weapons of subversion. In the past the men who drew them were often coy in the face of censorship: a mocking depiction of a king on a jewelled throne holding his nose as he surveyed his citizens might be acceptable, but not more obviously humiliating depictions of the monarch. Better to focus on foreign themes like America's support for Israel. Yet Arab cartoonists have been getting more daring. In Egypt they spent a year sending up their embattled president, Muhammad Morsi, before he was ousted. Syrian opposition newspapers show President Bashar Assad bathed in blood.
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