@sapphire @AmericanChampion @Ghislaine the wedge that lets cope in, is this: the military did not give up.The military was "winning" on the battlefield, and the US aligned government remained un-fallen, until after the political support collapsed. If you tell a maid to clean your room, and then mid-cleaning you come and kick the maid out of the room, it's really not correct to say that the room remains dirty because the maid failed.

This is a really easy and a persuasive argument, and it's definitely not fun to tell a guy that was there and remembers winning that he was losing, actually.

And the correction of it is subtler than "the objective as not met". It's this: if you tell a maid to clean your room, and then TEN YEARS LATER you tell her to stop, and the room's still not clean, then it really is correct to say that the room remains dirty because the maid failed.