By Ali Khamenei's logic, he did beat the US — by surviving

Times

2 days ago

As American and British troops tore through Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein's information minister briefly became a celebrity for his loyal, if increasingly unhinged, optimism.
'Baghdad Bob', as Muhammad Saeed Al-Sahhaf was nicknamed by the press corps, was still vividly describing the overwhelming defeats Iraqi troops were inflicting on the enemy even as American tanks rolled into the city.
It is easy to see statements like that on Thursday of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a similar light.
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In his first public appearance since the strikes, he claimed victory, despite the undoubted destruction of at least large parts of his nuclear programme. 'The Islamic Republic won, and in retaliation dealt a severe slap to the face of America,' he said.
The 'retaliation' was a volley of missiles fired at America's Al-Udeid air base in Qatar, none of which hit their target thanks to the United States' Patriot interceptors.
His declared refusal to 'surrender' to Trump also looks unwise. Israel destroyed all Iran's own aerial defence systems last year, leaving it unable to protect itself should attacks resume one day.
However, the US invasion of Iraq, initially so successful, turned into a much longer and grimmer 'asymmetric' war. It was Khamenei's lieutenants who funded and organised many of the Iraqi militias that wreaked such devastating harm on US and British troops with their roadside bombs and ambushes over the coming years.
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So there is also an asymmetric aspect to Khamenei's propaganda. Of course, there is no doubt that he hoped that Iran's own defence forces, and those of the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon last year, would have put up more severe resistance to Israel than they did.
However, Khamenei and Hezbollah are still there, just as Hamas is still operational in Gaza, despite the much longer, bloodier and more intense war that Israel has waged there.
The victory Khamenei really seeks is the survival of his regime and its ideology of 'resistance' against Israel.
Whether or not he or his successors actually one day give the order to build a nuclear weapon, the nuclear programme was always a symbol of that resistance. But it was not the only one.
If he now agrees to give it up for the sake of his long-suffering people and their desire for a revived economy, he will certainly no longer be able to claim to have won the war.
But neither the US nor Israel has carried out their threats to kill him, while on Thursday his defence minister was consulting his Russian and Chinese counterparts on his next steps, and he clearly feels there is still fight in his 86-year-old body. That, for him, may be victory enough.