One can never tell anything about the size of a crowd with close ups.
Good point. It looks like the same group of people in each picture. Of course, we're also assuming that this is an actual protest--and that it's an anti-government protest.
But hey...a good photo-op is a good photo-op, and those who want the U.S. to intervene in Iran will use every photo-op they can get. They're nothing if not persistent.
I see a total of maybe 50 people (and that's being generous) standing around in the dark. They could be protesting because tickets for the latest showing of Star Wars has sold out for all we know or they could just be standing around outside.
You're right though, the interventionists will take anything they can get their hands on and run with it. By the end of summer it may be an imperative to change the leadership in Iran for some imagined necessity. Of course, as we well know, the replacements may not be much better