Stan McChrystal has written an interesting and important book about organizational change. His argument, told through the experience of reconfiguring the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq from 2003-2009, is that organizations, to be successful, need to create cultures of sustained adaptation.

Twenty years after his presidency ended, Harry Truman reflected on firing General Douglas MacArthur, “I fired him because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the President. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that’s not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.”

J. Paul Getty advised young people to rise early, work hard, and strike oil. It was the recipe to success for many an American robber baron of the nineteenth century, a fortune in both senses of the word being made all over again as hydraulic fracturing enables American energy production to burgeon. American energy production is advancing our national security, as well, emboldening our friends and impinging on our enemies

Senate Republicans’ letter to Iran was a foolish act of pique that’s likely to backfire. But the president’s shortsighted dissing of Congress has weakened his hand for executive action.