In short, it is important for us to understand all religious currents, especially consequential ones in the Middle East, in historical materialist terms, not idealist terms. Then, we can see that Khomeinism and other Islamic currents that have similar class bases and political orientations resemble Latin American populism, not right-wing Protestant fundamentalism in the USA. --
[WS:] I think you draw a wrong conclusion, Yoshie. Both Latin American populism and US fundamentalism are reactionary and fascist in the way National Socialism was - nationalist, nativist in the sense of favoring extension of rights, privileges and economic benefits to the native folk while denying them to unpopular groups, and anti-internationalist. Only if one assumes a staunchly anti-American or anti-European stance, such reactionary Third World populism can be interpreted as a 'progressive' force.
In my book anti-imperialism, which is a thinly veiled code word for anti-American or anti-European chauvinism found in the Third World countries, is socialism of the fools. It almost invariably has one of the following two grand finales - metastasis to a rabid crony or gangster capitalism (e.g. Russia, China) or total breakdown complete with pogroms and genocide (e.g. Yugoslavia, Africa.) I predict the same for your pet country, Iran.
Wojtek