When Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince in 2015, just before his 30th birthday, it created a wave of optimism that he could modernize a kingdom that has long resisted change.
Change has come rapidly indeed. Women can now drive, the powers of the religious police have been scaled back, and Mohammed has sketched out plans to overhaul and diversify the oil-based economy.
But Mohammed, now the crown prince at age 33, is facing far greater scrutiny for the repeated crises that keep cropping up in a place that has long preferred to be slow, steady and out of the spotlight.
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