A war supporter throws in the towel?

Lawrence Kaplan, writing for The Plank (TNR's blog) yesterday:

The fact is, there is very little that we can do to dampen the sectarian rage and pathologies tearing Iraq apart at the seams. Did the Army make a mistake when it banished "counterinsurgency" from the lexicon of military affairs? Absolutely. Does it matter in Iraq? Probably not.
. . .

Even if America had arrived in Iraq with a detailed post-war plan, twice the number of troops, and all the counterinsurgency expertise in the world, my guess is that we would have found ourselves in exactly the same spot. The Iraqis, after all, still would have had the final say.

At TPM, Josh Marshall takes it this way:

You could summarize what Kaplan is saying as, Our guns and our money and ideas are no match for their history and their hate.
. . .
[H]ere you have the final come-down. Not an admission of error here or there or in execution, but total -- that the whole idea and concept and program was upside-down-wrong in its essence.

Mark the moment -- that's the ghost given up.

Atrios disagrees:

Kill Them All

While I'd like to be wrong, I believe Josh is missing the message here. This is not Lawrence Kaplan admitting "the whole idea and concept and program was upside-down-wrong in its essence." This is Kaplan saying the only option is to exterminate the brutes.

I'd like to be wrong, but Kaplan's recently been mocking Democratic desires to withdraw. So, staying doesn't help. Withdrawing is a silly idea. The other alternative is?

Indeed.