[g8oz]

None of those numbers are verifiable. The opposition has every incentive to lie. And let's not forget there was a lot of armed agitators amongst those protesters. Mike Huckabee let the cat out of the bag with a tweet boasting of how a mossad agent walks beside every protester.

[throwawaypath]

False. Khamenei himself acknowledged "thousands of people" had been killed during the protests: https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/iran-youn...

[g8oz]

You're confidently replying to a point that I did not make. Protesters were certainly killed, both peaceful ones and agitators. In addition, government claims hundreds of police officers died and places of worship were attacked and burned.

My point is there is simply no verifiable numbers because both the opposition, particularly diaspora groups backed by the regimes enemies, and the government have incentives to be inaccurate. So trying to use the death toll as a talking point is not a good idea.

It's completely naive to underestimate the role of Mossad and the United States in the unrest. The former through actual Iranian nationals in their employ, and the latter in engineering the dollar shortage that led to the unrest in the first place (Scott Besant bragged about this).