I think Bob is just trying to save face. He was screaming "quagmire! quagmire!" at the top of his lungs last week. Now that he's been proved wrong, he's kind of saying, "Well...er, it's still a quagmire, because now, we have to deal with the Northern Alliance, and they're bad, too!" Tell that to the people dancing in the street of Kabul, Mr. Novak.
One other thing- doesn't it seem like the right-wing pundits who are the most gloom-and-doom about our war on terror have been notoriously skeptical (to use a nice word) of Israel? Novak, Charlie Reese, and Pat Buchanan all come to mind.
Sounds like a reasonable explanation.