not accusing you of simplifying here (it is a good heuristic) but this articulation crystallized things for me:

A Marxist understanding of capitalism leads to anti-imperialism. Anti-imperialism is understood by detractors as a simple rhetorical dressing over simplistic heuristics like “reflexive anti-americanism,” “history repeats itself,” and “the military-industrial complex needs contracts,” but all of these are reductive. Marxists understand that human political leadership in the imperial periphery, whether enlightened or tyrannical, will only be antagonized by empire for one single possible reason: it is getting in the way of market penetration. This is phrased succinctly by Kevin Dooley when criticizing Noam Chomsky’s support for a military alliance between the Kurds and the USA in Syria: “The difference between [Chomsky’s] position and a hard-line anti-imperialist position isn’t tactical. What he’s arguing is simply a violation of anti-imperialist principles based on a fundamentally different understanding of what can drive the empire to act in the world.” [16]

The accusation that anti-imperialists are unconcerned with human rights deserves a sharp rebuke. The USA was born of slavery and genocide, dropped atomic bombs as a matter of political brinkmanship, imported Nazi scientists and installed war criminals like Klaus Barbie and Nobusuke Kishi around the world to defend and advance anti-communist positions [17], and enthusiastically supports gruesome butcherers today. Simply put, Capital has destroyed innumerable countries and murdered hundreds of millions directly and indirectly. It is precisely a concern for the rights of humans that should make one immediately skeptical of any humanitarian posturing by Capital. Anti-imperialism not only means support for the important pro-social projects of states like Cuba, Vietnam, and China; it also means critical support for non-socialist states such as Iran and Russia. Critical support acknowledges that, though instituting various indefensible policies, enemies of empire are not being antagonized because of said policies. The only thing that can drive empire to act in the world is capital accumulation.

from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/