A dangerous fatalism has gripped too many people with regard to the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear weapons program. America holds much better cards than the mullahs. We have let ourselves be spooked for far too long. History is full of instances that instruct us in the dangers of wallowing in pessimism.
General Abel D. Streight plumbed the low point of his life in the spring of 1863. His cavalry raid into Alabama got off to a good start, but then he came to the attention of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a nightmare situation for anyUnion horseman. A four-day series of running battles followed, stretching right across the northern tier of Alabama into Georgia.
At last, on May 3rd, his exhausted horses and men able to go no further, Streight watched in despair as dozens of Confederate artillery batteries rolled past two hills flanking his position. He surrendered shortly afterward, to discover that he’d heavily outnumbered Forrest all along (Forrest was forced to draft local civilians to guard his prisoners), and that the vast array of Confederate artillery was a single battery trundled repeatedly over the same spot.
The point of this story is: never allow your opponent all the aces. Don’t assume that the odds are on his side, that he outnumbers you, can outfight you, that there’s no such thing as bad luck in his corner. The iron laws of war – the risk factors that make it such a perilous enterprise in the first place – apply to both sides.
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