(LifeSiteNews) — Calls for a U.S. military intervention in Iran have been fueled by claims that the Iranian regime has killed tens of thousands of its own people in crackdowns over anti-government protests.
With U.S. forces still positioned to strike in the region, how reliable is the narrative we have been sold in the mainstream media?
Disputed figures
On day 23 of the protests, the U.S.-based human rights organization HRANA has confirmed 4,029 deaths, with claims of a further 9,000 under review. The Iranian regime has countered, saying a popularized figure of 12,000 deaths comes from deaths recorded from all causes in the past year.
This contradicts pro-Israel claims of 30,000 Iranians killed – as the Canadian politician and activist Goldie Ghamari said here:
30,000 murdered Iranian patriots.
This is unbelievable.
WHERE IS THE HELP THAT WAS PROMISED? pic.twitter.com/eO7HXlQRk6
— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) January 17, 2026
Ghamari, described on Wikipedia as “vociferously pro-Netanyahu,” told viewers on X on January 11 that, “Everything happening now in Iran is thanks to Israel.”
Her statement appears to agree with that of the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who blames “U.S. and Israel-linked” protesters for the deaths.
With further details on casualties, an Al-Jazeera report of January 17 had this:
On Sunday, an Iranian official in the region told Reuters the authorities had verified at least 5,000 people had been killed in protests, including about 500 security personnel, blaming “terrorists and armed rioters” for killing “innocent Iranians.”
The report added most of the deaths had occurred in the Kurdish separatist region.
Who are the protesters?
Most of the reported fatalities are protesters. Who are they, why did the protests begin, and what happened next?
Veteran Middle East specialist Alastair Crooke argued on January 14 that the protests were initially started by Iranian market sellers. Known as “bazaaris,” these street merchants were suffering the crippling cost of living and of doing business – largely produced, Crooke says, by U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Crooke, who is a former MI6 agent, spent 20 years in the region, brokering negotiations between Israel and its domestic and regional neighbors, which collapsed after the U.S. launched the war on Iraq.
In this interview, “Who is killing who in Iran,” Crooke says the initial protests were not to topple the regime, but were escalated by the “brutal violence” committed by agents of outside powers.
Which outside powers? “Israeli media outlets are full of reports claiming they are busy planning operations inside Iran” Crooke says.
A January 8 report from Israel Hayom quoted the Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu: “I can assure you that we have some of our people operating there right now,” he said of Iran.
In a related article, Crooke says the protests have been “externally orchestrated” – a “CIA MOSSAD operation,” which was halted by the internet shutdown.
The impact of cutting-off protestors from their external controllers was immediate – and underlines that the rioting was never organic; but planned long in advance.
The suppression of the extreme violence practiced by an influx of well-trained rioters, together with the arrest of the ringleaders has cut away the main plank to this iteration of the U.S.-Israeli regime change strategy.
So far the regime has not been weakened – according to Israeli sources.
Crooke cites Ehud Yaari in his video interview, “an Israeli intelligence officer” and “veteran security correspondent” whose comments appeared in the Hebrew news outlet Maariv on January 11:
He was saying a couple of days ago – after the 9th [of January] after the peak – he said look, we do not see clear cracks in the regime mechanisms in the government nor in the armies.
A conservative view
The British conservative journalist Peter Hitchens spoke on January 18 of his longing to return to Iran, “a beautiful, largely pro-Western nation” which he says “won’t be saved by meddling from the West.”
“I think we have to be very, very careful over here in the West to imagine that we can make it into a democracy by messing around with it internally,” he explains in this video.
On his Substack, Crooke gives a rich informational picture of the crisis in Iran, explaining how Chinese technology provided to Iran gave the regime a “kill switch” to cut off the internet – including Elon Musk’s Starlink.
HRANA also notes January 20 is the 13th day of Iran’s internet shutdown. How did this affect the crisis?
Crooke explains why this meant the U.S. strikes had to be aborted. With no internet communications, there could be no coordination, and without this “interoperability” provided by Starlink as in Ukraine – there could be no operation at all.
Why regime change now for Iran?
Finally, Crooke says the latest round of tensions were created by a new Israeli lobby pressure point. Netanyahu has pressed the U.S. to strike Iran since 1992, using the line that Iran is weeks or days away from producing a nuclear weapon.
This is no longer convincing, so the Israelis switched, Crooke says, to the threat of new Iranian missile technology.
Crooke says the Israelis used this argument on Trump: “So there’s a short window. Trump, you have to take advantage of this window and you have to go now and destroy the air defense, the ballistic missile system of Iran.”
Why the strikes did not happen
Why? The Israelis warned, said Crooke, that soon air defense and electronic warfare countermeasures will arrive from Russia and China which will make strikes impossible.
Crooke says these technologies arrived sooner than expected, meaning the strikes as planned could not be carried out.
His analysis offers three explanations: Israel is demanding Iranian regime change, the strikes were cancelled due to unexpected countermeasures. Finally, the violent protests were the result of outside paid agitators and intelligence assets in Iran.
Was this a genuine Iranian uprising?
Here is a declassified report on how the CIA used paid violent agitators to stage the 1953 coup in Iran which deposed the then Prime Minister Mossadeq.
An image from the report shows the location of gangs of “ruffians paid to demonstrate by coup organizers.”
As the CIA admits, the coup was organized by the CIA and MI6, codenamed Operation Ajax. The British state continues to deny this. The Shah of Iran was involved in the coup, which saw him abolish democracy and rule as an absolute monarch until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Initially non-Islamic, the revolution was prompted by the autocratic rule of the shah, his perceived corruption, and his use of the repressive SAVAK – his secret police.
The SAVAK was set up with CIA help and trained by the MOSSAD – Israel’s secret intelligence service. The cooperation of the shah’s security service with MOSSAD is documented here.
Financial Times report: ‘Agitators’ in Iran
Claims of paid thugs in uniform are not restricted to reports from Iranian sources, or to the opinions of Alastair Crooke.
On January 16, the U.K.’s Financial Times reported that “agitators mingled with genuine protesters … looking like commandos” – starting fires, and urging people to join the protests.
The above report from the U.S. National Security Archive shows some of the long history of regime change in Iran by what Peter Hitchens would call “meddling.” It demonstrates a decades-long involvement of Israeli intelligence operations in Iran, which is also reported in Israeli media.
A case against sanctions
Hitchens has also countered the argument for sanctions on Iran, remarking on twitter, “Sanctions hurt the powerless, never the powerful. I hate them.” On January 17 he explained why he believed sanctions should be lifted on Iran.
.@maryamebadi12. But I do discuss sanctions, and explore the recent attempt to lift those sanctions, in return for limits on Iranian nuclear enrichment, which I regard as a sensibel deal but which Dnald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu destroyed. I get screamed at for doing so. Sanctions… https://t.co/KdE3cOHz0u
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 18, 2026
In June he argued:
Iran is crippled by sanctions which do a lot to help keep the Mullahs in power (the isolation of Iran is their greatest weapon). These immiserate its people, making their lives poor, preventing economic growth and imposing unemployment on the young.
The human rights club
Caution should be applied to human rights arguments in favor of military intervention. This is because the issue has itself been weaponized in decades of regime change.
The defense of democracy and human rights has routinely been used to permit “liberal interventions.”
What is the meaning of the human rights club?
A U.S. State Department memo leaked in 2017 was published by Politico. It explained how one adviser to the then U.S. Secretary of State argued that human rights should be used as a club to beat America’s adversaries – like Iran:
One main reason Iran has an Islamic republic today is because MI6, the CIA, and MOSSAD installed and trained a repressive regime almost 70 years ago in Iran.
If you call for another regime change in Iran, bear this in mind. The interests being served here are not those of the Iranian people, as it would appear at first glance. A closer reading shows a complex of powers vying for regional dominance over decades.
It would appear the Israelis have received a warning from history over the fate of British regional influence, though they seem indifferent to learning any lesson from the consequences of regime change for the people who suffer it. Regime change, after all, was effectively invented in 2002 – when Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress reappeared in the National Security Strategy of the United States.
A new national security strategy has now replaced the regime change playbook. As a result, the question now is how can strikes on Iran be sold to Americans as being in their national interest?
As history shows, buyers should beware of talk of rights and democracy when regimes are being changed.
Just look at your own.