King Adbullah is a wonderful leader who lets Christians operate openly and normally in his country. Thus, the mainstream media mostly ignores him until he cracks down on Muslim extremists committing acts of violence.
Mohammed bin Salman has the opportunity to become an Arab version of Ataturk, something which would have been unthinkable over the past three administrations.
King Adbullah is a wonderful leader who lets Christians operate openly and normally in his country. Thus, the mainstream media mostly ignores him until he cracks down on Muslim extremists committing acts of violence. Mohammed bin Salman has the opportunity to become an Arab version of Ataturk, something which would have been unthinkable over the past three administrations. We'll have to see what bin Salman's real agenda is. His arrests and purges could be driven more by a desire to eliminate rival factions and consolidate power than by a desire to secularize Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, he may very well want to try to take Saudi Arabia out of the Dark Ages through secularization. Secular autocrats not beholden to clerics are the best you can hope for in the Middle East.