There were various suspicious foreign phone calls in/leading up to his first presidency … in the end it was all ignored, I’d be surprised if this got treated differently now.

No, it was silly ;-)

The previously reported multiple thousands of deaths in recent days were just of natural causes then?

Or do they actually mean 2500 in a single location?

I hope the Iranians can get a proper new government but I fear it will never work, the current one will just lean more and more on violence and pull in external extremist forces to enforce their will.

And if, by a fortunous act the current extremist government does fall I would not be surprised in the least if within 3 years a new extremist element violently suppresses their people.

Iran can never return to its glory and freedom from before the removal of the shah unless they remove ALL powerhungry zealots.

And that is the problem, everyone there currently working at a government position is powerhungry because they have nothing else, they need the position to dominate over someone else or fall away into poverty and non-meaning.