Ebrahim Raisi Sworn in as President of Iran

Following his landslide electoral victory after a controversial campaign that saw his most significant opponents disqualified, Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as the eighth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran during a ceremony in parliament on Thursday. Raisi, a hard-line ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, enters office at a particularly difficult time for his country, which faces an economy battered by US sanctions; electricity and water shortages, exacerbated by record-high temperatures; the largest outbreak of coronavirus in the Middle East; mutual hostility with much of the Sunni Muslim and Arab worlds, as well as Israel; and tough negotiations aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers. Iran is embroiled in multiple regional conflicts, both directly and through proxy forces such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hizbullah in Lebanon. Previously, he served as the country’s chief justice and prosecutor-general and was a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that appoints Iran’s supreme leader. He has been widely criticized for his role on a special commission, sometimes described as the “death committee,” that oversaw the 1988 torture and execution of thousands of Iranian dissidents, political prisoners, and religious apostates.