this isn't a poll about what you or I believe, it's pointing to the existence of at least one lower-noise avenue than the ones pursued
observe that your position is not verifiable by the world at large, while cryptographically signed messages would be veriable by us individuals across the whole world.
one may counter that the US could make up a large number of fake crypto key / Iranian associations; but surely to the extent that Iran has a functioning regime, surely it could use the IAEA as a channel to communicate the Iranian cryptographic key observations like:
* Khamenei confirms meeting Aragchi in person and Aragchi has chosen such and such a public key
* Aragchi confirms meeting Khamenei in person and Khamenei has chosen such and such a public key
* and so on for all players interested in participating in confirming the present regime or establishing a new one amidst chaos.
(if you don't have control over your physicists at a nuclear power plant, then you don't have control over your regime)