Bashar Al-Assad
Bashar Al-AssadReuters

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was sworn in Saturday for a fourth seven-year term in the war-torn country, reported The Associated Press.

Assad said in his inaugural speech that all his concerns are about "liberating the land and confronting the economic and social ramifications of the war."

"Making things better is possible, certainly possible," he said, speaking for over an hour. "War and siege didn't close the doors completely ... we can get through them. We just have to know how to."

Assad won the May election in a landslide, winning 95.1% of the votes.

Assad’s win was not in doubt, even though two challengers ran against him, including Mahmoud Ahmed Merei, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, and former deputy cabinet minister Abdallah Saloum Abdallah.

Assad is supported by Iran and Russia, which sent troops and assistance that have propped him up throughout the war.

Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

Iran congratulated Assad shortly after his landslide election victory, describing it as a "big step" towards restoring peace after a decade of civil war.