Important lessons

Twelve years ago my business was located next to the construction sight of a pro Baseball stadium. I would walked by the sight every morning and every evening . At first it didn't seem like much changed from day to day. But in a few weeks the outer form of a stadium could be discerned and in a couple of months the whole outer structure was visable.
This got me to thinking. Relatively small amounts of continuous progress- progress that was barely noticable on a daily basis- had lead to a large edifice that was very noticable in a few short months. I concluded from that the following:small amounts of progress , continued over a relatively short period of time, will lead to significant and recognizable progress.The coralary of this is: When no recognizable progress is noticable it must be that no small amounts of progress are happening on a regular basis.
I looked at my own business and noticed that no significant growth had been noticable over several years. I realized that what ever I was doing on a daily basis was not moving my business forward . It must be, I concluded,that although I was working very hard I was doing something to hinder progress. I had to be doing something wrong or their would be progress. I realized that without identifying the mistake and changing it nothing would change for the better.
All of this brings me to the current situation in Iraq. For years the USA employed a strategy that showed little progress. Yet when the surge was implemented , possitive change came almost immediately.
Our early strategy was reactive,characterized by very restrictive rules of engagement on our soldiers. Month after month ,year after year Coalition forces and Iraqi civilian casualties were rising and whole areas of the country were contolled by the enemy .Americans at home were loosing faith in our prospects for success and the locals were hedging their bets and not standing solidly with us , fearing that if we pulled out, their cooperation with us would doom them to death at the hand of Al Quida.This situation continued unchanged for years. It is not surprising that if you keep doing the same thing you will keep getting the same result.
Then we changed our strategy. We started to take the initiative and go after enemy strongholds and made the rules of engagement less restrictive. Our soldiers were out looking to kill the enemy , destroy his bases of operation,put them to flight and destroy weapons caches. In just a few months we are seeing major possitive changes. Entire provinces are now free from Al Quida( Anbar) we are killing thousands of enemy combatants, locals are helping us identify the bad guys and American casualties are down.This tells us that we are employing the right strategy and that we should continue to do so as long as we continue to see progress.
In the early days of the War we heard a lot about winning hearts and minds. We thought that we had to be gentle with the Iraqis so as not to offend them and show them what nice people we are. WRONG. They saw us as weak and naive.Only after getting tough and starting to win are we winning hearts and minds. By being tough and by winning we are giving Iraq's people reason to believe that its worth it for them to stand with us.
This will lead to political progress as well. From the grass roots up local chieftans will take our side and demand that their national leaders follow suit.Successful negotiations flow out of success on the battlefield not from just being nice.Its time America learn this lesson and Israel too.