At one point in the past, the argument made by Amin, et al. indeed enjoyed a great deal of influence on the Left if not in society as a whole. That is no longer the case. There is no anti-imperialist consensus on the broadly defined Left, not even on the Marxist Left, one of the reasons for the "Western Liberal-Left Intellectual and Moral Collapse" in the case of Yugoslavia ("Notes from the Editors," October 2007, <http://monthlyreview.org/nfte0907.htm>).
Now that you mention the Persians in this context, debate on the Left over the history of the Iranian Revolution does appear to revolve in part around what to think of dependency theory. This is how Valentine Moghadam put it, holding dependency theory in general, and the Iranian application of it in particular, responsible for the failure of the Iranian Left:
It is now widely accepted that this blindspot was due to
an inordinate emphasis on the anti-imperialist struggle
and an almost mechanical application of the dependency
paradigm.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The variant of dependency theory that was adopted in Iran
stressed the high degree of political dependence on the
United States. It did not recognize the measure of autonomy
-- expressed, for instance, in friendly relations with the USSR
and China -- that was possible for a regime such as the Shah's,
especially as a result of oil wealth. Nor could it adequately explain
the complex economic processes unfolding in Iran during the
1960s and 1970s.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And for the Tudeh Party, the fundamental objective was a
national democratic revolution based on anti-imperialism and
the breaking of bonds of dependency.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Left's focus on dependency and anti-imperialism blinded
it to the exploitative nature of the Bazaar, and the politicization
of a clerical caste that was beginning to talk of Islamic government.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moreover, most of the Left seemed unaware in the 1970s that
the religious forces were weaving a radical-populist Islamic
discourse that would prove very compelling -- a discourse which
appropriated some concepts from the Left (exploitation,
imperialism, world capitalism), made use of Third Worldist categories
(dependency, the people) and populist terms (the toiling masses), and
imbued certain religious concepts with new and radical meaning.
("Socialism or Anti-Imperialism? The Left and Revolution in Iran,"
New Left Review I/166, November-December 1987, pp. 1-2, 8, 9, 10,
<http://newleftreview.org/?view=1013>)
While I do not claim that dependency theory is always everywhere the best way to look at the world (and I in fact have a criticism of my own regarding this theory), I do think it is wishful thinking to suggest that Iranian leftists might have triumphed had they not subscribed to it. Rather, what happened, as far as ideological struggle was concerned, was that lay religious intellectuals such as Ali Shariati and Jalal Al-e Ahmad, as well as clerics, were able to develop a revolutionary ideology that was _more appealing_ to the popular consciousness of masses of Iranians than Marxists', even though all sides drew upon dependency theory, for the former's ideas fit better into Iranian masses' religion in particular and culture in general, from which secular intellectuals were estranged by virtue of their class backgrounds, education, and worldview.
Chavistas' ideology is populist and anti-imperialist, a Third-Worldist ideology having much in common with the Monthly Review tradition. And yet, they have prevailed while Iranian leftists couldn't. One of the reasons, I suspect, is that Chavistas, like Iran's religious revolutionaries but unlike its Marxists, are very good at melding populism and anti-imperialism with the cultural, including religious, traditions of masses in their country, for instance, successfully re-interpreting the legacy of Simon Bolivar, among other influences, in a way that builds support for the Bolivarian process and making that interpretation hegemonic.
Last but not the least, debate over the Iranian Revolution is in essence debate over liberalism, for many leftists, in hindsight, argue that Iranian leftists should have sided with Iranian liberals against Islamic populists. Since no one can rewind history and make a difference choice, though, what's the point? What is at stake is not the past but the present. The often implicit and sometimes explicit argument advanced on the back of the argument that Iranian leftists should have sided with Iranian liberals is that we should learn from their "error" of the past and _support liberalism this time around_. As you know, I disagree. Liberalism was not the answer then, and liberalism is not the answer now, in Iran or Venezuela. -- Yoshie