BEIRUT AND TEHRAN — Dogged by allegations of election fraud and battered by some within his own conservative camp, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad limped defiantly into his second term as Iran's president Wednesday, vowing to strive for "national greatness."
As he was sworn in, the empty seats of reformist and moderate politicians boycotting the ceremony gaped from the gallery inside the parliament building while police fired tear gas and swung truncheons to quell a demonstration outside. Both highlighted the domestic challenges Ahmadinejad faces in attempting to consolidate his power and implement his hard-line agenda.
Ahmadinejad told lawmakers and dignitaries he would dedicate himself to serving the Iranian people and to taking bold steps on the world stage.
"It is not important who voted for whom. What we need is national greatness," he said in a speech broadcast live on television after he was sworn in by the judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. "We are representing a great nation. It needs great decisions and great deeds. We need to take great steps."
But Ahmadinejad might find achieving greatness a long, hard road, analysts said. He has built his political base on populist economic giveaways and a defiant foreign policy that have won him the fealty of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but may be difficult to maintain. His unyielding drive may have endeared him to some, but has also led to significant clashes within his own hard-line camp, some members of which skipped the ceremony.
"He is facing problems and disputes even among his own . . . faction, let alone a widening gap with the people outside the government," said Ahmad Shirzad, a political analyst and physicist. "Ahmadinejad started his second term in abnormal condition, and his popularity is low and weak."
The Obama administration has said it would recognize Ahmadinejad as Iran's leader, though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised the opposition Wednesday during an appearance in Africa.
The governments of the United States, Britain, France and Germany have said they would not send him a customary note of congratulations, and Ahmadinejad responded with characteristic defiance.
"No one in Iran is waiting for your congratulations," he said. "We do not value your congratulations and we don't value your smiles."
