Ebrahim Raisi takes office, as Iran and the West face off

day of his two-part inauguration on August 3rd, Ebrahim Raisi regretted that he could not kiss the hand of his mentor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, owing to covid-19 restrictions. But there was no doubting the bond between Mr Raisi, Iran’s new president, and Mr Khamenei, its supreme leader. Both men are hardline clerics who view the world, and the West in particular, with suspicion. “Trusting the West does not yield results,” said Mr Khamenei in the run-up to the ceremony.Some in Iran may be pushing for confrontation. On July 29th, just days before the inauguration, a drone laden with explosives was flown into the , an oil tanker off the coast of Oman managed by an Israeli-owned firm. Two crew members, a Briton and a Romanian, were killed. America, Britain, Israel and Romania blamed Iran, which denied involvement. Saeed Khatibzadeh, an Iranian foreign-ministry spokesman, accused Israel of creating “instability, terror and violence” and warned that “whoever sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind”.