Hassan Rouhani, a cleric and former nuclear negotiator for Iran, officially replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has endorsed the election of Rouhani, who was an Islamic activist prior to the 1979 revolution. Two days before his inauguration, Rouhani reportedly said that Israel “is a wound … on the body of the Muslim world for years and needs to be removed”; state media later claimed he was misquoted.
