It's about honor, I remember Saddam Hussein saying that after they held against the US for 40 days they "won" the war, because in their culture when a higher power entity goes against a weaker one, it is without honor and the weaker entity "wins" honor by being able to defend for that long.

▲

nilamo 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's not unique to their culture. Remember The Alamo? That was 190 years ago and we still celebrate our defeat.

▲

qup 3 hours ago | parent [-]

We don't celebrate our defeat. We celebrate the men, the courage, the greater meaning.

▲

nilamo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The greater meaning of... holding a position over a period of time that seems unreasonable against a far superior force? Exactly like the GP described for Hussein? It certainly sounds like we're celebrating the same things, unless I misunderstood your point...

▲

ruined 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

exactly, defeat.

▲

btilly 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The greater meaning of a revolution that was fought to preserve slavery.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/how-leaders-texas-r...

When we remember history, what we remember tends to be white-washed.

▲

Der_Einzige 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The Mexican government and especially Santa Anna were not even close to saints and were not primarily fighting the Texans for reasons of slavery. The Mexican empire carved out slavery as being explicitly allowed in the Mexican state that become known as Texas.

	▲	criddell 10 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Mexico was about to end that carve out. But slavery was only one of the causes (and you're right about Santa Anna). The myth is that Bowie and Crockett battled until their last breathes. The truth is that Bowie was sick and died in bed. Crockett gave up and was executed. That's all from the 2021 book Forget the Alamo.
	▲	7 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

▲

drnick1 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Iran is pulling the same trick now, claiming it "won" just because the regime did not fall (yet). This is despite having lost most of their conventional army, navy, and air force, and having also mostly lost control of the straits of Hormuz.

▲

rcxdude 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean, the Iranian regime has had one goal the whole war: survive. So it is a victory of sorts so far: the US has not achieved its strategic goal of regime change, and Iran has managed to inflict a fair amount of pain in retaliation.

(You could say the Taliban were even more thoroughly 'defeated' in Afghanistan while the country was occupied by the US, but it can hardly be said that it was a victory for the US either, given what happened as soon as they left).

▲

stale2002 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> I mean, the Iranian regime has had one goal the whole war: survive.

No it wasn't. If Iran's only goal is to survive then it would have made peace with the USA and surrounding Middle Eastern territories decades ago.

This whole war is happening because Iran had great political ambitions than just thriving on its own.

Iran has been funding proxy terrorist groups for a long time now, specifically because it is trying to achieve larger goals than just surviving.

And on those fronts, well those proxy groups have taken a ton of damage and aren't long for this world.

	▲	potatototoo99 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Their goals are to survive and control the strait of Ormuz. And they will do both because eventually the US will pull out, because to try to hold the strait is a financial drain. Just like Afghanistan. So it's a waiting game and everyone knows Iran will win. Orange man can say he won every day and after a year, 5 years, 10 years, 50 years eventually the US will have to admit defeat.