The problem is that people made the classic mistake of equating righteousness with the ability to win. Any implications of the situation being militarily difficult were met with accusations of lacking moral fiber. That muddied the waters to an unsustainable degree.

What’s even the point of negotiating now? It’s too late too many people have been sacrificed in the meat grinder of this senseless war and now they’re asking for negotiations after losing so much manpower?

This is called the sunk-cost fallacy.

The point is to stop your citizens from dying. You can't win because you are Correct™, it doesn't matter how Correct™ you are.

You can believe that your country is fighting the good fight and still believe that they aren't winning. This isn't Star Wars or anime. You can be at a disadvantage despite being in the right.

Worse, honestly. In COD you usually win through a mix of being a near-peer adversary or overmatch and grit. No they thought war is cape movies where you just need to get beat up enough for the universe to grant you a win at the last moment.

They made it a matter of faith.

On that note, things kind of deteriorated PR wise once they tried counter invading. Is that completely justified? Of course.

Is it wise? No. It turned the war from "our men are being sent off to war and return as caskets" to "I personally know someone who was blown up while doing sone civilian job". That works wonders on the propaganda front.

Note how Islamic terrorist attacks vanishingly rarely seem to directly strike at nations fighting in the middle east.

That's not just because of increased security, but also because it makes it easier for the populations to consider their leadership to be engaged in excessive force abroad because it doesn't directly affect them.

You need to victimize those whose deaths will make sure the nation they belong to won't want to fight back.

If you bring the fight to the enemy you better well have the forces to crush & occupy them, otherwise it detracts from turning your own place into a point of no return.