60-year-old Ebrahim Raisi was officially sworn in as Iran’s president in Tehran. Dignitaries from around the world, including the presidents of Iraq and Afghanistan attended the parliamentary ceremony. The new president faces mounting challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a battered economy made worse by U.S. sanctions and high-stake negotiations to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal.

Joining the conversation:

• Soraya Lennie is a journalist and author of “Crooked Alleys: Deliverance and Despair in Iran.”
• John Ghazvinian is the Executive Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “America and Iran, a History, 1720 to the Present.”
• Michael Franken is a retired Vice Admiral with the U.S. Navy and Principal of Chartwell Strategic Advisors.
• Habib Abdolhossein is a journalist and PhD. candidate in Media Management at the University of Tehran.

For more:

Ebrahim Raisi was inaugurated Thursday as the new President of #Iran.#CGTNAmerica https://t.co/KH243DzDsk

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) August 5, 2021

The protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ebrahim Raisi, was sworn in as the country's new president during a ceremony in parliament. The inauguration completes hard-liners’ dominance of all branches of government in the Islamic Republic. https://t.co/coFXBI4OKT

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 5, 2021