The neocons and their maximum leader haven’t figured it out, but we aren’t going to win the “war on terror.” Or maybe they have. Either way, we’re in Iraq for the long haul.

That, it seems, is the import of the president’s request for $87 billion more for Iraq, where weapons of mass destruction, the newspapers report, no longer seem to be the main problem.

Now, we’re down to the real business; again, winning the unwinnable, unconstitutional war on terror.

Problem is, “terror” is not Tojo or Hitler. It cannot surrender; its “troops” cannot be “defeated.”

This was the point of my early columns on the war in Afghanistan. I supported the war for obvious reasons, but added that without a declaration, the commitment to Afghanistan and any other country would be endless.

By contrast, a declaration of war would imply, by tradition, an obvious end; i.e., the surrender of enemy forces. In Afghanistan, that would have been the Taliban regime and its “fighters,” or whatever they were called, and its al Qaida phalanx.

In victory, under a declaration of war, we could have left the country, having destroyed our foe. Granted, this means bin Laden and the Taliban are one in the same, a fair conclusion given al Qaida freely operated in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s knowledge.

As predicted, American troops are still in Afghanistan. They will never find bin Laden. Better to exit and save some American lives. We can get him at a time of our choosing.

But on to Iraq, which War Minister Rumsfeld planned to attack before the ruins of the World Trade Center and Pentagon stopped smoking.

We attacked without a declaration of war. We will eradicate WMD, the Bush regime said, Iraq was involved in the mass murder of Sept. 11, and so we must fight the “war against terror.” Well, we can’t find WMD, the case against Iraq is dubious, and no one will surrender in the “war against terror” any more than anyone will surrender in the “war against crime.”

We defeated Iraq’s troops. Now what? An analogy:

We dispatch a SWAT team to wipe out John Gotti’s Family. It succeeds, but the team hangs around Gotti’s territories, searching house-to-house, business-to-business, looking for any type of criminal involved in any type of crime. SWAT members patrol the streets wearing military gear and searching suspicious passersby at gunpoint. They accidentally kill a few innocent citizens and reporters.

Their mission? Win the “war on crime.” Gotti was just the beginning.

The climate of fear and hatred such a tactic would excite is what we see in Iraq.

Whether a declaration of war would have prevented this, given the history of American intervention, we cannot know.

But at least it might brake such military adventurism. A grave matter, declaring war requires a full-throated debate in Congress, where Americans can argue through their representatives for or against the president. In the murky forum of the United Nations, we can’t. A declaration of war against Iraq may have failed in Congress. Further, we cannot declare war against “terror.”

No wonder the neocon imperators and their sock-puppet in the White House prefer unconstitutional “war powers.” Such powers permit the unfettered use and endless commitment of American troops. The neocons want endless war, but to fight they need that blank check.

Problem is, when the check is cashed, the currency paid out is American blood.

R. Cort Kirkwood is a syndicated columnist.