[luckylion]

The point was that it started as one. I read that as "even if it starts as a fundamentalist regime, it can develop into something else."

[mc32]

I would disagree on the assertion that it was fundamentalist. Compared to the places they came from, they were pretty open and indeed ensured that there was separation between state and religion, unlike many other places at the time where there was an intricate relationship between the two.