Khomeini is practicing al taquiyya... lying to the infidel. What’s the purpose? Not admitting defeat.
Islam is spread by the basic principle that if they can beat you, their god is greater, and you must convert. That is the meaning behind their battle cry, “Allah Akbar!” Because of this, they can never admit defeat. To do so is to turn their back on Islam and admit that their god is not greater.
This is why you get ridiculous things like this and Baghdad Bob declaring we are losing the Iraq war while entering Baghdad... no amount of obvious defeat will ever be admitted. They will only accept that they’ve had a momentary setback. They will recover and will eventually continue the fight.
We’re losing? Let’s call for hudna—ceasefire. This essentially means we need time to regroup and rearm to continue fighting. It doesn’t mean the end of hostilities as we think of it.
It’s their religion.