Norm revisits the old question: why do some leftists not sufficiently oppose nasty governments such as Iran's? He says:

For many left activists, opposing their own and other Western governments is a way of announcing their anti-capitalist [Norm's emphasis] credentials. Even though the regimes and movements this turns them indulgent towards may be no more anti-capitalist than a large investment bank, this section of the left permits itself the illusion that, by making rhetorical noises against imperialism and/or the West, such regimes and movements express - covertly, indirectly - some impulse towards an alternative, more egalitarian form of political economy.

To which I can only quote Robert Robinson; 'Would that it were, Mr Geras, would that it were.'
I say this because if anti-capitalism were the dominant motive of that section of the left that 'indulges' illiberal regimes, then we'd expect to see a lively discussion of alternatives to capitalism.
But this is precisely what's missing. AFAIK the left doesn't have much interest in such alternatives; the relative merits of various non-capitalist ownership structures just doesn't get much discussed - or if it does, no-one brings such discussions to my attention. When I occasionally suggest a case for workers' democracy, I feel like a crank making a lone call.
'Smash capitalism and replace it with something nicer' seems to be the limit of 'anti-capitalists' interest.
Take, for example, the two most prominent left movements - UK Uncut and Occupy Wall Street. Granted, these movements reasonably pride themselves on their diversity and so shy away from specific programmatic demands.
But as far as I can see, what demands there are fall short of the overthrow of capitalism. UK Uncut's main policies are an opposition to spending cuts and a demand that the rich pay more tax.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has no official list of demands. This list submitted by one supporter contains only one proposal - a 'guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment' - that comes close to a genuine transitional demand. Others are libertarianism (open borders) or Keynesian (more infrastructure spending). I suspect the movement is motivated by a desire to energize the left or opposition to 'bad capitalism' rather than by full-scale anti-capitalism.
You could fulfill the (stated) demands of UK Uncut and Occupy Wall Street and capitalists would remain in charge of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
What's missing from both is any vision that capitalism can be overthrown and replaced by democratic worker ownership.
Now, we could argue forever about why the left isn't articulating clear alternatives to capitalism. But the fact is that it isn't. Which makes me suspect that the leftists Norm has in mind are not, primarily, motivated by anti-capitalism, but by something rather less coherent.