The success of [the surge's] "benchmarks" can be judged relatively easily. As President Bush himself put the matter: "We can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents."

This was supposed to be accomplished through two major initiatives. Most visibly, the U.S. military was to adopt a more aggressive strategy for pacifying Baghdad neighborhoods considered strongholds for the Sunni insurgency. Occupation officials blame them for the bulk of the vehicle bombs and other suicide attacks that have devastated mainly Shiite neighborhoods. The second, less visible (but no less important) initiative involved subduing the Mahdi army of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- the largest and most ferocious of the Shia militias -- which occupation officials blame for the bulk of death-squad murders in and around the capital.

These changes should have been observable as early as this July. By then, as a "senior American military officer" told the New York Times, it would already be time to refocus attention on "restoring services and rebuilding the neighborhoods."

To judge the surge right now -- by the President's real "benchmarks" -- we need only look for a dramatic drop in vehicle and other "multiple fatality bombings" in populated areas, and for a dramatic drop in the number of tortured and executed bodies found each morning in various dumping spots around Baghdad.

By these measures, the surge has already been a miserable failure, something that began to be documented as early as April when Nancy Youssef of the McClatchy newspapers reported that there had been no decline in suicide-bombing deaths; and that, after an initial decline in the bodies discarded by death-squads around the capital, the numbers were rising again. (These trends have been substantiated by the Brookings Institution, which has long collected the latest statistics from Iraq.) [...]

[W]e might note that, instead of ebbing, violence in Iraq was flooding into new areas, just beyond the reach of the U.S. combat brigades engaged in the surge. Or perhaps it's worth pointing out that, by July, the highly fortified "Green Zone" in the very heart of Baghdad -- designed as the invulnerable safe haven for American and Iraqi officials -- had become a regular target for increasingly destructive mortar and rocket attacks launched from unpacified neighborhoods elsewhere in the capital. According to New York Times reporters Alissa J. Rubin and Stephen Farrell, the Zone has been "attacked almost daily for weeks."

...[W]e could focus on the fact that the long supply lines needed to support the surge -- massive convoys of trucks moving weapons, ammunition, and supplies heading north from Kuwait into Baghdad -- have become a regular target for insurgents. Embedded reporter Michael Yon, for instance, recently reported that, for convoys on this route, "it's not unusual to be diverted or delayed a half-dozen times or more due to real or suspected bombs."

In the end, though, perhaps the best indicator is the surging strength of the surge's primary target in Shia areas. Since the surge plan was officially launched in mid-February, according to the Times' Rubin, the Mahdi Army "has effectively taken over vast swaths of the capital."

To that I would add the humanitarian crisis facing over 8 million Iraqis in need of immediate emergency aid (as reported by Oxfam), two million plus refugees who have fled the country, two million more internally displaced, the lack of drinkable water, poor sanitation, electrical power for only an hour or two per day, a corrupt and dysfunctional national government, etc., etc., etc. I know, I'm such a nitpicker for details.

By the way, just in case you think Secretary Gates has now turned away from the dark side and come into the light, let me disabuse you right now of that notion.

Gates said he was optimistic about military progress in several Iraqi regions, particularly Al Anbar, a western province that was once a haven for insurgents.

Isn't one sign of insanity (or at least deep denial) the ability to believe in two positions that directly contradict each other at the same time? Nonetheless, I'm sure he'll continue to be hailed as a very serious man by all the very serious wise men of Washington. After all, he's one of the club, and you and I are not.