When the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, it was not like it became an occupied territory where the American occupiers handled Russian slaves. But rather the Soviet Union lost the global power status and communism lost the influence it was supposed to have around the world. Likewise, when the United States lost the war in Vietnam, America did not sign some document of surrender and it wasn't like Ho Chi Minh was marching in the streets of Hanoi dictating the terms of the American defeat.

It is the fall from grace that hits the powerful states harder than actual defeat as understood in wars between non-nuclear armed countries, where territories are lost, terms of surrender are dictated, a future leader is installed, and the constitution of the defeated state is rewritten.

From any angle of rational approach, the United States and Israel are the actual losers of the war with Iran. Sure, important leaders of Iran have been assassinated and their economy has been choked by........

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