Slate‘s Fred Kaplan is a fine writer, and no doubt knowledgeable about military affairs. Today, he predicts that a surge in Afghanistan cannot and will not work:

[T]he conditions that made the surge succeed in Iraq to a limited degree (more on that caveat later) are very different from those in Afghanistan-so much so that the tactics employed in the one country have little relevance to the other.

In doing this, he specifically defies John McCain’s assertion that “It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan.”

Kaplan explains why he suspects Afghanistan can’t be treated like Iraq:

[T]he Taliban’s insurgency is ideological, not ethno-sectarian (except incidentally). Therefore, while some warlords and tribes have allied themselves with the Taliban for opportunistic or nationalistic reasons, and therefore might be peeled away and co-opted, the conditions are not ripe for some sort of Taliban or Pashtun “Awakening.” Nor is there any place where walls might isolate the insurgents.

The problem with this? In 2007, he was saying essentially the same thing about the surge in Iraq, with the same level of confidence:

[T]he eagerly awaited plan that Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have promised to deliver this September-seems ambitious and intriguing, but confusing in concept and highly impractical.

If the U.S. military had, say, 100,000 more troops to send and another 10 years to keep them there; if the Iraqi security forces (especially the Iraqi police) were as skilled and, more important, as loyal to the Iraqi nation (as opposed to their ethnic sects) as many had hoped they would be by now; if the Iraqi government were a governing entity, as opposed to a ramshackle assemblage that can barely form a quorum-then maybe, maybe, this plan might have a chance.

But under the circumstances, it seems unlikely.

Kaplan still believes that the surge was not the definitive reason for the relative success in Iraq in the last year–and he is not the only one to have such doubts. Many of those opposing the surge, unable to admit their mistakes, find shelter in arguing, as Kaplan does, that “To the extent that the surge played a role, it wasn’t so much the surge itself–the infusion of 25,000 extra U.S. combat troops–but rather what Petraeus ordered those troops to do.”

Maybe. (It sounds like hairsplitting to me.) But Kaplan didn’t just argue against the surge. His writings reflected mistrust: he didn’t believe that the people behind the surge understood what they themselves were doing. Here’s what he wrote in 2006 against Fred Kagan’s plan for the surge:

How long will the surged troops have to stay? Kagan writes that “the security situation” “improves within 18-24 months and we can begin going home.” But given the way the numbers add up, this seems extremely unlikely.

“Unlikely” is a word Kaplan is fond of. But, quite like “unacceptable,” it is a word in need of further clarification: how likely is the unlikely to become likely? Of course, the fact that Kaplan got the surge in Iraq wrong doesn’t mean he isn’t right about Afghanistan. I do think, though, that John McCain deserves some credit for getting Iraq right. Even from the highly-suspicious Kaplan.