Four years and 24 days. Nineteen days. There’s a huge difference between those two numbers. The first numbers — 1,485 days altogether — is the length of time since Russian troops crossed the Ukraine border on Feb. 22, 2022, and headed for Kyiv. The second number — just 19 days — is the number of days since U.S. and Israeli forces on Feb. 28 began bombing strategic targets in Iran. 

The two attacks have this in common: their initial responses were far different from what many experts, in the United States and beyond, expected and predicted.

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Back in 2022, the conventional wisdom in many quarters was that Russia was headed to a quick victory, to occupation and absorption of all or some large part of Ukraine. What Catherine the Great achieved and what Leon Trotsky perpetuated would be matched by Vladimir Putin in time for his 70th birthday in October 2022.

Joe Biden’s administration had ordered U.S. personnel out of what was expected to be the Kyiv war zone. It offered to evacuate the former comedian who was elected president of Ukraine in 2019.

But Volodymyr Zelensky had another idea. “I need ammunition,” he famously said, “not a ride.” And the Russian troops, it turned out, had little need for their parade uniforms.

There had been some reason to think many Ukrainian residents would welcome a reunion with Russia. Substantial numbers, especially in the east, identified as ethnic Russians, spoke Russian rather than Ukrainian, and had voted for presidential candidates........

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