Garak in the episode "In the Pale Moonlight" (I know there's probably other threads)

[kkt]

So rereading this thread it seems to be it's an open question of the assassination of Vreenek was the only way to achieve victory. What if the assassination was never even attempted? Section 31's attempted genocide of the founders might well have worked. Bashir and O'Brien would be too busy fighting to hunt for a cure for the disease.

The disease would kill all or nearly all of the Founders. The Dominion, at least in the Alpha Quadrant, would collapse quickly. There would be many Vorta and Jem Hadar killed too.

Seems like even the Founders should appreciate that the Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance won the war and allowed all the Founders except the one Female Changeling to return to the Link after the war.

 

[DonIago]

So rereading this thread it seems to be it's an open question of the assassination of Vreenek was the only way to achieve victory. What if the assassination was never even attempted? Section 31's attempted genocide of the founders might well have worked. Bashir and O'Brien would be too busy fighting to hunt for a cure for the disease.

The disease would kill all or nearly all of the Founders. The Dominion, at least in the Alpha Quadrant, would collapse quickly. There would be many Vorta and Jem Hadar killed too.

Seems like even the Founders should appreciate that the Federation-Klingon-Romulan alliance won the war and allowed all the Founders except the one Female Changeling to return to the Link after the war.

What Would Picard Do?

I think it's an open question how the Jem'hadar would have responded in such circumstances. They might have caused far more damage without having anyone holding their leashes.

 

[kkt]

Even Captain Picard might have gotten tired of posting casualty lists every week, after a couple of years. If you've been trying Plan A for a long time and it hasn't been having the desired result maybe it's time for a new plan.

 

[DonIago]

Even Captain Picard might have gotten tired of posting casualty lists every week, after a couple of years. If you've been trying Plan A for a long time and it hasn't been having the desired result maybe it's time for a new plan.

This is one of the reasons why it's a point of frustration for me that the TNG films never made much more than a passing mention of events on Deep Space Nine. INS at least raised a halfway decent moral dilemma for the TNG crew, but one could argue that the way they handled that just made it seem even more likely that they wouldn't make the kind of tough call that Sisko made.