Matthew Yglesias, in discussing pundit commentary on Pakistan, notes a pattern:

How many times have I read a column making an argument like 'Iraq is all fucked up for reasons A, B, and C but given the price of failure we have no choice but to close our eyes and hope really hard that A, B, and C vanish for some reason'? It's really foolish, a way of trying to present oneself as wise and knowledgeable about difficult questions without putting anything out there that one can be held accountable for if things don't work out.