No, the protests were mostly genuine. That's what happens when your country is so up it's own ass with religious totalitarianism that you set yourself up to not have water at all in the next few decades. Average citizens generally get really pissy when you take away the "At least I'm not literally dying" excuse.

The US could not participate in that because we had moved assets to south america to fuck with Venezuela. The war in Iran wasn't started until the USS Ford had been re-positioned back to the middle east.