Min's viewings are always right, or were, until recently when the Pattern loosened and Jordan hinted they may not all be absolute anymore, but that her older viewings still are. Only Min's confidence is crippled with her so-called failed viewing of Moiraine, no one else knows this.

It means the mechanisms in the future the Wheel has in places to ensure the events depicted in a viewing come true are not (or not yet - Shai'tan's powers have not grown to their maximum for now) affected by the loosened pattern - their "markers"/anchors (for lack of a better word/explanation) in the future are as solid as ever, and therefore, it's with putting in place new "markers" for events shown by recent viewings that the Wheel is struggling with in the current context.

This means Elayne finds herself in one of those rare situations when a "prophecy"'s interpretation is clear as daylight and can use it to her advantage. Her babies will be born healthy, therefore until they have reached the stage they would be healthy even if born prematurely, it is "The Will of the Wheel" their mother remains alive.

Jordan discussed this issue at some point. There's this narrow zone (sometimes just a fine line) between deciding for action despite not "knowing everything", in other words taking calculated risks, and sitting on your butt doing nothing letting and let things come at you as they will, often with the result that your enemy that won't sit on its butt the same way will bring about evil's triumph. Rand has attempted to walk that "fine line" several times. The outcome always followed the same pattern: he doesn't always achieve his goal but still gets further on his path, with a mix of both good and bad unforeseen consequences. It works along the very same principle ta'veren does (just not the same magnitude). Rand succeeded at making some prophecies happen (but never avoided the collateral damages and colateral rewards which are part of the Wheel's programming to maintain balance) when he interpreted them the right way. He has failed (but still got the good and bad uncontrollable side-effects) when he misinterpreted a prophecy. But even failure advanced things in his case, as it often brought among the "side effects" the fulfillement of other prophecies Rand didn't even know about.

A few examples:

Success: attempting to get the Aiel behind him. Good side effects include: getting Asmodean to teach him, getting rid of Lanfear, placing Moiraine and mat where they needed to be, bringing Egwene back to the Wetlands in time for the Rebels to snatch her up. The price included: the Shaido, war in Cairhien, the death of several people around Rand, losing Moiraine and so on.

Failure: Putting into his head that to fulfill the prophecy the cardinal points prophecy he had to send Aiel and Tairen to Arad Doman, Domani to the Borderlands, force a truce on Tuon and ignore the White Tower altogether. Reward: his epiphany, getting rid of Aran'gar, putting the CK out of commission before a true disaster happened and so on. The price include: losing his hand, balefiring a whole palace, embracing the True Power, failing so massively with Tuon he put her in the position to decide to attack the White Tower. Etc.

Elayne has done the very same thing, except her window for misinterpretation in the case of this viewing is much lower than it ever was for Rand and KC verses or Finn prophecies, and thus what she puts in the balance is much smaller. She will live to give birth, and not only that but she's forgotten other key viewings such as the fact she'd be Queen of Andor. What Elayne has done was very dangerous, but the alternative was sitting on her butt doing nothing, while Careane killing and causing strife in the palace (it's been suggested notably that Careane may very well have killed Merilille and Talaan to derail Elayne's deal with the SF and any hope of SF/WT agreement) The only reason Birgitte managed to get the WF to get involved was that with Elayne dead they lost everything. Under pressure, they broke. Elayne would never have convinced them to get involved in time. Without them to bring her forces at the right time and place, Arymilla brought the civil war into the city, which would have been very extremely ugly as Dyelin would likely have been lost, the armies of Pelivar and co. would have been forced to get involved or run the real risk Arymilla triumphed. Because of Min's viewing about her being Queen, Elayne couldn't really lose the throne (perhaps you can make a prophecy fail, but under extreme circumstances we barely know anything about, and which probably involves the Wheel losing all alternative paths, e.g. Mat managing to avoid going to Rhuidean) but she would still have ended up in a big mess, with Careane still lose, Shiaine still plotting and becoming increasingly dangerous and difficult to dislodge as Moghedien's "lost" BA pawns joined her. Elayne put the Pattern under some pressure. Her remaining alive was an anchor point, and to maintain it under the dangerous circumstances Elayne placed her life in, a lot of "crazy coincidences" started to happen (so much people who's missed those "coincidences" had to be part of the Wheel mechanism involved accused RJ of having rushed the denouement with unbelievable plot twists). In somethign ressembling the events around ta'veren (without the extended random effects, it's the big difference) a lot of "unforeseen consequences" started happening very fast, with a mix of unexpected rewards and prices to pay (reward: the Shadow's preparation for the Invasion of Caemlyn were set back/disorganized/delayed by removing the major plotters for a whole, the balefire rod was put out of commission, the battle between the Houses was minimal etc. Prices: the deaths of several warders, Aes Sedai, balefire being used on many etc.) and this rapidly spiraled into a chain reaction that ended with Elayne on the throne.

The general picture isn't a negative one. By taking advantage of certain foreknowledge, Elayne appears to have "split a knot" and opened up new choices that allowed the Wheel to suddenly precipitate outcomes it had to achieve, like her gaining the throne.

Then it's by being held back by everyone around her horrified she dared take such risks that Elayne started to dither and "sit on her butts". She should have dealt with the BA prisoners sooner. She knew she had virtually nothing to gain keeping them alive. They would lie or be assassinated with colateral damages (incl. all their guardians), or worse, if the Shadow judged them valuable enough they'd be rescued. Trying to move them to the Rebel Hall was disobeying Egwene's orders to stay away, and would have only sent them where other BA would have killed them so they couldn't be interrogated after being stilled. It was the one time Elayne would have been fully justified by common sense and sheer pragmatism to disregard Tower Law and the Amyrlin's prerogatives and kill the whole lot of them (Elayne was without any AS anymore at the time, I'm not convinced she had the knowledge to still them or if she did that the Kin would have agreed to provide the women for the circle). Of course Elayne had to be clever about it, by being very discreet about those executions, so the WT could later cover up that the Queen of Andor took upon herself to execute Aes Sedai. Elayne just had to get the whole lot killed and pretend the prisoners were sent to TV. That left plenty of wriggling room to Egwene.

In any case, Elayne did put the Pattern under pressure to keep her alive again. The options appear to have been more limited this time (may just be appearance, though). Again if she kept sitting on her butt that day, the breakout would have happened, and more dangerous people who, it appears, were already working toward the attack on Caemlyn and the murder of Mat, would all have been free. Obviously the Shadow at this point preferred to recuperate and use those assets, or they would have done the same thing as before and send assassins much earlier than that. What it tells us is that the Shadow is short on good assets for its plans for Caemlyn and by capturing those key people in KOD and winning the throne in the circumstances she did - and all because she chose to play the "prophetic" ace in her sleeve and act, Elayne did strike a meaningful blow to the Shadow's plans.

With her second attempt, she striked another, precipitating a chain of events where the necessity to keep her alive brought the death of more people. The Wheel used Mellar's lust and he saved Elayne to be able to rape her, which brought the death of three Black Ajah - the one who healed Elayne, and two who stood in Mellar's escape's way. The Shadow got one agent all too close to Elayne exposed, he attempted to free seven more agents Moridin/Moghedien thought important enough to spare them the capture=death usual treatment, and it ended up with 4 escapees and just two BA versus 4 deaths, including the unexposed agent nearest to Elayne. Give and take, balance. The same pattern again. Elayne also bought her life with a ter'angreal falling into the Shadow's hands - it was part of the unforeseen consequences/prices to pay, but it's a flawed copy which can't be used by a channeler and which is no good for more powerful weaves (weaves Elayne tried on it unaided, that gives an idea that "powerful weaves" is fairly relative). That will certainly be useful to Mellar down the line like during the attack on Caemlyn maybe, if he's clever enough to hide from his masters he's got it (otherwise it could perhaps end up with Slayer, the Shadow's nastiest non-channeler), but it's not like Elayne just handed Demandred or Moghedien near immunity or anything like that. And she learned in time of the fact the Shadow planned to kill Mat, and that in turn convinced her to give him back his ter'angreal right then. She also learned of the invasion plans, but she mysteriously (and willingly) chose not to reveal this to her inner circle for now. It sounds like a convenient plot device, either because the story needed for Elayne to have made a big mistake (in the sense that simply having her never learn about the invasion beforehand wasn't an option, the fact she knew and didn't act will become a relevant story point) or to avoid a plot hole by explaining Elayne has not forgotten but chose to defer the issue to later discussion, and thus hide completely whatever measures she may have put in place behind the scenes regarding this attack, before she left Caemlyn.

I also tend to agree with you on Elayne as a politician.

She's still totally in the succession/conquest logic right now, blinded by the power she gained and now sky's the limit. She seems on her way to turn herself into an alternative High Queen à la Hawkwing against the Seanchan Empress. And we know for Aviendha's vision where that leads. Without securing a full reunion of the channelers behind her, Elayne would be doomed.

Even without the Seanchan, it is a huge gamble considering she just stripped Tear of its hopes to gain economic advantages in Cairhien, forced Far Madding, Illian, Murandy and the Borderlands to always trade through Andor from now on, or strike a deal with the SF or Asha'man for Travelling services or worse given their anti-AS prejudices and the fact Elayne is AS and her recent power grabs stink of the WT having abandonned neutrality to favor it's AS Queen, decide their interests are with the Seanchan. Deals by nations with groups of channelers for servicest would de facto turn the groups of channelers into economic rivals and would totally ruin Egwene's plans. She's made some highly risky moves, like securing the services of the Kin exclusively for her realms. That was the organization into which Egwene planned to have the Aes Sedai retire into, once they renounced the Oaths. They were not supposed to give up the Oaths only to become channeler-for-pay in Andor.

That's a stupid plan to retire channelers from active life by midlife if there ever was one (Egwene really has not thought that one through), but that's immaterial to the fact if Elayne's plans are leaked publicly soon, Elayne has just painted Egwene in a corner. It may well have the unforeseen consequence to force the WT to send the AS back to actually be Aes Sedai for real, but that's not quite the outcome Elayne wishes. Elayne has gotten into the bad habit of using her Aes Sedai status, and her place in the hierarchy, solely for her personal gain or that which she sees as gains for her nation over the others. She tricked the Borderlands rulers using her Aes Sedai status, and they know all too well for what she did it. She's used her friendship with Egwene and her orders to stay away from the Hall to hide previous blunders she had made to secretely secure a deal with the Windfinders, to make an trade agreement with the SF, her captain-general has used the fact the Windfinders aren't oath-bound to make them use the OP as a weapon to the personal gain of an Aes Sedai (the Windfinders and their leaders won't let that just slide) and now she's by-passing the Amyrlin to give a job to an organized group of channelers. That's not really new for her, she was keen to seize Rand's academy and turn in to Andor's profit as well.

Elayne has a long history of testing the limits of Egwene's patience with her disregard of the authority of the Amyrlin, but she may find out as soon as Merrilor Egwene's no longer the nearly powerless Amyrlin of Salidar who had to hide the mischief of her close friends because revealing them could bring her down. First the SF fiasco Egwene had to spin, and now her attempt to "steal" the Kin from the WT, which the Hall will no doubt see for what it is: a nation challenging the WT's hegemony over organized groups of channelers on the mainland. Lately it's like Elayne is begging for a conflict with the White Tower. The way she's going, she won't enjoy a trustful "special relationship" with the Amyrlin Seat for much longer. Which isn't in itself cause for much chagrin, except for the fact it's now the eve of TG and the WT happens to be the only organization on which Rand can pass the burden of keeping the nations together.

But then, that's often been Elayne's purpose in the story, to make risky but daring gambles which precipitate matters to resolution or an important turning point, sometimes on a rather global scale, like her attempt to undo her gateway from the Kin's farm to Andor, which, coupled with Rand's later fiasco with Tuon, is the main motive that justified Tuon's attack on Tar Valon. Elayne herself is the AS weapon of mass destruction, ironically enough (and a mirror to Rand which the BA tried to spin as a Forsaken weapon of mass destruction)

Egwene's been skirting around the issues of the future of the Tower, the purpose of the AS, the future of the Oaths, what to do with the male channelers, what to do with the three organized groups of female channelers like forever, held back by the sisters whenever she had a bit of the right vision and coming with often weird half-baked compromises or alternatives as counter to that, but it sounds like Elayne may well have triggered unwittingly the final resolution, but just like it happened to Siuan, this may put her friendship with Egwene under big strain soon. But there's Aviendha to patch things up, maybe. I guess it's too much to hope that Gawyn may help rather than prove a nuisance again. Elayne's vision for the Aes Sedai is for certain more advanced and beneficial than Egwene's paler attempts forestalled by the WT establishment, but Elayne thinks only of Andor and power for Andor (and by extension, for herself), and she needs to made to see the larger picture before she creates all the conditions for war.