To me, that’s exactly how it feels like. To me, this says, “no, Iran is not an evil hellhole, they are a regular country where hypocritical conservatives have too much power”. But that’s because I’ve already had Persian friends, and I already know that Iran is not a monolithic block of evilness. To someone with a more conservative outlook or to someone who knows less about the Iranian people, this kind of reporting might reinforce prejudice. Only I don’t know what should be done about that. Maybe just emphasize the ridicule she’s facing from Iran for her hypocritical actions as much as possible?
The theocratic government allows some leeway, and she seems to be on the conservative side of that leeway. Thus, she seems to be in roughly the same category as homophobic western politicians who turn out to be customers of same-sex prostitutes.
They do have agency; it is constrained by the system, but after all, Iran is an Islamic Republic and people even get to vote. The field of candidates is restricted to the range between “religious conservative” and “religious ultra-conservative nationalist nutjob”, but the people get to choose.
That restriction of available candidates is worse than the de-facto restriction to a choice between two rich people that Americans get, but it’s not an absolute restriction.
They do have debates on what direction the country should be moving, and while “big steps” are outlawed, people can and do have vastly different positions on the “small steps”.
I also have the impression that people in Iran have way more choices than Western, especially American media say they have. Have you spent any time double-checking your assumptions, or might you have fallen victim to propaganda? (I’ve you’ve done your “homework”, I’m inclined to believe your findings, but if not, I’ll blame the media).
Anyway, I’ll be flying to Teheran in a couple of days. Dear Americans, don’t start a war yet 
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And I’ll be visiting both the USA and China later this year, so maybe I’ll finally have some first-hand experience to base comparisons on.
