In politics, a phenomenon has been repeated so often it has become a sacred ritual after every war waged by the axis of dictatorial regimes and its terrorist arms. This is the manufacturing of imaginary victory from the heart of defeat, transforming tragedy into a propaganda carnival that bestows honors on those who emerge bloodied and beaten.
The Iranian leadership’s recent statements glorifying the “great and true power” revealed by the war against Israel can only be read in this context. Here, speech becomes a tool to erase collective consciousness and establish an alternative narrative that contradicts reality. This is not the first time we have heard this recurring anthem. The same formula was established decades ago, where defeat is framed as heroism and failure is presented as a strategic achievement.
Strikingly, this pattern is not limited to Iran but extends to its proxies like Hezbollah, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza. After every destructive war leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, their leaders emerge with arrogant speeches. They suggest a historic victory occurred and that the enemy has yet to understand their power.
The reality on the ground, however, testifies to the opposite: ruined infrastructure, social devastation, and political breakdown.
In contrast, Israel’s experience with war reveals a stark civilizational difference. Israel, having fought harsh wars since its inception, has known the bitterness of defeat but never ran from it. Instead, it turned every loss into a laboratory for learning, rebuilding its army and security doctrine. Every defeat was a studied lesson, and every war a prelude to a more organized and professional one.
Meanwhile, Middle Eastern states that inherited successive dictatorships have never valued admitting defeat. In their distorted minds, they considered acknowledging defeat a weakness that damaged their dignity. In its place, they raised banners of divine victory and created false narratives while their people paid the price and the enemy they portrayed as vanquished advanced with calculated superiority.
This mental difference created the different outcomes. Israel has a pragmatic, institutional mentality that acknowledges and learns. This stands against a backward and sick mentality in the Arab and regional environment that hides behind slogans and sees any criticism as a threat to its authority. This mentality has brought tragedy and destruction to the Middle East, opening the door for generations to feed on a discourse of lies.
More dangerously, denial has become a model for terrorist organizations. They too have adopted the method of imaginary victory to handle oblivious populations, making it their golden rule in every confrontation.
It is a deliberate policy designed to feed the flock. Ideological regimes know that admitting defeat would collapse the only wall of legitimacy they have. Therefore, they intentionally promote a discourse that perpetuates the image of permanent victory.
How the Middle East creates an imaginary victory
This ideology relies on three main tools: first, it cancels objective reality and replaces it with an artificial narrative; second, it employs collective emotions like fear and national or religious pride to turn setbacks into sources of honor; and third, it recasts the enemy as a cowardly loser regardless of its actual superiority on the field.
In the case of Iran and its allies, official media, satellite channels, and social media platforms become continuous factories for this illusion. Images and clips serving this myth are broadcast, while any discussion of losses or political failure is forbidden. Ironically, the same figures raising the banner of victory are the ones who smuggle their families to safety in other countries and Europe, living in fortified towers far from the battlefields where they send others to die.
It seems we are facing a political economy of defeat. The heavier the losses, the higher the level of propaganda. Every fallen missile and collapsed neighborhood is turned into material for a fraudulent auction of honor and lost dignity. On this, fake heroism is built at the expense of crushed populations. Slogans of resistance become a mere facade for a tyrannical project that serves the survival of corrupt regimes more than any just cause.
The vanquished citizen, thus, remains a prisoner of a narrative with no connection to reality.
Without a doubt, when the truth in the Middle East is too harsh to justify, inventing a collective delusion becomes a political necessity. Defeat can be transformed into a heroic event through the complete control of information and by preventing any independent voice from telling the truth.
This propaganda creates a massive knowledge gap between what is actually happening and what citizens think is happening. Over time, this gap generates a pathological denial that leaves people captive to the authorities’ lies, incapable of holding them accountable. Here, the role of despotic regimes and their terrorist arms converges.
A war promoted as a means to achieve security or reclaim land becomes a tool to ensure the regime’s survival. For these leaders, any halt to the war means confronting the truth. The Middle East, thus, remains hostage to the illusions of its rulers. Banners of victory are raised while ruin swallows its cities. Its people will not escape this hell until they topple the masters of illusion and shatter the myth of permanent victory that has only ever delivered permanent defeat.
The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.