COVER STORY: “Iraq’s Young Blood,” by Christian Caryl, Newsweek, 22 January 2007, p. 25.

BRIEFING: “The president’s last throw: George Bush announces one more push for ‘victory.’ Is he just reinforcing failure?” The Economist, 13 January 2007, p. 24.

If it was just the American people doubting the surge strategy, that would be one thing.

But it’s all the expert opinion too, plus the regional players (many of whom desperately fear our failure), and our allies (Britain’s basically leaving).

In the normal world, those are all considered big signs that one’s thinking is sort of screwed up, but Bush, who confuses stubbornness and incuriosity with resoluteness and certitude, chooses his own path. To me, that’s a presidency out of control, lost in its own Gap.

Here is what that disconnect gets us in Iraq to date:

A DoS poll last summer “found nine out of 10 young Iraqis, Sunni and Shia, saw the United States as an occupying force.”

Iraq’s government admits that 70 percent of kids no longer go to elementary school regularly [that percentage matches the unemployed, not surprisingly; as recently as last year it is estimated that 75% attended]

“Jonathan Powers, a former U.S. Army captain who served in Iraq in 2003 and now directs a nonprofit working with kids there, notes that the ongoing violence is creating a generation that is undereducated, unemployed, traumatized and, among boys in particular, ripe for the vengeful appeals of militias and insurgent groups.” [That corresponds to everything I get through privileged channels from Iraq.]

“Powers likes to point that when he served in Iraq the going rate to have an IED planted was $1,000, with another $1,000 paid for killing an American. Now, he says, kids will set bombs for as little as $20.

[The dog years impact of traumatizing violence:] “In one survey of kids in the Iraqi capital, some 47 percent of respondents said they’d witnessed a ‘major traumatic event.’”

“In a February 2006 study published by the Association of Psychologists of Iraq, 92 percent of the kids surveyed showed signs of learning impediments.”

“The exodus of middle-class Iraqis--some 2 million refugees now live outside Iraq--has eviscerated the least sectarian slice of society.”

Will someone please tell me what Dick Cheney knows that the none of the rest seem able to figure out?

Because here’s the historical record on good and bad peacekeeping jobs by America:

‚ÜíBosnia and Kosovo were good, and featured 22-23 soldiers per thousand population.

‚ÜíSomalia and Haiti were bad, and featured 3-4 soldiers per thousand population.

→Afghanistan sits at 0.5, and Iraq’s at 6.1.

→Even when the Iraqi army is added in, we’re at about 14.

‚ÜíExperts say 20 is the solid minimum for foreign troops.

‚ÜíThis surge puts us back up in the 160k range. We hit that peak twice before in 2004 and in 2005. The impact on troops per thousand will be negligible.

Bush and Cheney were told all this going in, and decided otherwise. They still decide otherwise.

We could have had the troops if we made the deals with others to get them. But Bush and Cheney don’t do diplomacy. They don’t trade. They don’t compromise. They don’t talk to enemies.

Instead, they consistently put our troops in the worst possible strategic position, and when they’re called on those bad choices, Bush and Cheney dare Congress to cut funding to the troops, recalling the phrase that patriotism is the last refuge for scoundrels.

We’ve waited almost four years for the corrections to come, and yeah, when you screw things up, you end up compromising.

Happens to the best, happens to the rest.

Real leaders admit mistakes and do what’s right. Bad ones just run out the clock, throwing the ball out of bounds.

Please, no more Medals of Freedom.