How there is a marriage of convenience between western progressivism and ultra-conservative theocracy is still confusing and mysterious to me.

I agree with you about Qatari influence. You bring up Iran's history. In the 1979 revolution, Marxists were the leading exponents in Iran, seconded by the theocrats. The Ayatollah talked a good game about reconciliation from France, until he came back and wiped the Socialists out in short order. [If you haven't read Among the Believers by VS Naipaul, check it out - it's one of the most engaging books I've ever read].

So somehow the Iranian socialists failed to see that Khomeini was a reactionary even worse than the Shah, until it was too late. So this alignment is not new, but it's still completely mind-boggling. For instance: Every progressive leftist I know in the US hates the church they grew up in, hates Christianity, hates religion. I'm an atheist myself, so I don't care about that. But then they can somehow idolize Islamic theocratic regimes that are far more totalitarian than even the rigid culture they grew up in. Why that? Ignorance, post-colonial guilt, some racist idea that brown people don't have the same thoughts and agency to rebel against bad ideas? Yeah, Qatari money in the universities is part of it, but this has been going on longer than that.

Here's a theory: They're what Hannah Arendt called, in Origins of Totalitarianism, "superfluous men", outcasts of the educated elite who are attracted to any utopian belief, no matter how murderous. The more murderous the better, actually. Because they have an unearned dissatisfaction and an unearned sense of grievance, coupled with a righteous sense of anger about things they know very little about.