Fail in what sense, ZZZ?? If they do it right, they will be using the resources of the Moon itself, having sent robotic probes ahead to make sure they can reach from their landing sites what they need when they need it as far as raw materials. They will be bringing with them core equipment from which to start both the permanent habitats for the colony and to build yet more equipment, with designs sent up from Earth. As Rand noted 3-d printing could help a lot in this, even fusing regolith alone, and extending to metals and other materials.
Once you are generating Liquid Oxygen by electrolyzing the oxides in the rocks, you will have raw metals as waste from that, and processes to remove them from the siliceous material still there can be set up quickly. That will leave behind the type of oxides that go into making very high strength glass fibers that can be wound into those permanent habitats for strength. Similar processes can make many other materials from native lunar materials. So, the physical part of the colony could make it.
Bad management could still make such a colony fail, but that is most likely in its first few years, before anything like the population needed for statehood is there. We will know if it lives or dies long before 13,000 people are there.
