Iran ? President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received a broad mandate Thursday as parliament backed his main Cabinet choices — naming the first woman minister since the 1979 Islamic Revolution but showing international defiance by supporting a suspected mastermind in the bombing of an Argentine Jewish center that killed 85 people.

The conservative-dominated legislature rejected Ahmadinejad’s choice for energy minister and two other women nominated for less prominent posts. The rest of his 21-member Cabinet was approved.

The broad backing was somewhat stronger than many in Iran had expected because even some of the president’s fellow conservatives had criticized him for nominating unqualified ministers.