I had a friend once who always predicted every new TV show would flop. He didn't base this on viewing their pilots or early episodes or reading scripts or anything. Indeed, he didn't know what most of the shows were about. If you said to him, "Hey, NBC is putting a new series on at 8:30 on Tuesday night," that was all he needed. Didn't matter who was in it or who produced it or what it was called. He'd predict its quick failure.
Why? Because, he explained to me once, if you predict every single TV show will fail, you'll be right an amazing percentage of the time. You will very likely equal or outdo those who study the shows carefully and predict this one will definitely succeed and this one might and these three probably won't, etc. I'm not sure the math didn't bear this out. Sure, he was wrong about a lot of smash hits…but there were a lot more instances where he was right.
I got to thinking about him today as I read up about Syria, a situation I don't pretend to understand. And maybe I don't need to because, you know, it's not like anyone's going to make policy because a guy who used to write Yogi Bear comics expressed his opinion. I'm thinking of ignoring, to the extent possible, all these matters. And if I just say, every time the U.S. gets involved in the internal affairs of some country, "We'll regret this, especially after our involvement escalates beyond what now seems like the extent of our commitment," I'll be wrong now and then. But I'll be right an amazing percentage of the time.