BEIRUT, Lebanon — With his adversaries boycotting the ceremony and a vast deployment of police standing guard outside, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn into office for a second term on Wednesday, almost two months after an election that divided the nation and sparked Iran’s deepest crisis since the Islamic revolution 30 years ago.
There were scattered protests in the streets around the Parliament building in Tehran, where the ceremony took place. But with thousands of riot police and Basij militia members patrolling the capital, the million-strong rally the opposition called for failed to materialize.
“I, as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, swear before the holy Koran and the Iranian nation and God to be the guardian of the official religion, the Islamic Republic and the Constitution,” Mr. Ahmadinejad intoned as he took the oath of office. A brief film shown before the ceremony highlighted Iran’s… >>>
