Sisko didn’t have the privilege of being a peace time captain. He had to be at the center of a war between galaxies with everything at stake. He didn’t have a choice how agents he may have protected acted. he didn’t command, direct, or approve of their methods. He only benifited, and protected, with disgust and grief for the values he once held dear. But all he had then was the list of all those lost, and the precise knowledge that losing the war, ment total destruction to everything and everyone he cared about. It would be future generations that would judge him, no one who marched through the mud along side him would.
He literally used quark’s nephew as extortion leverage in the first episode.
To be fair, that’s probably expected in Ferengi custom
“It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.”
A CHALLENGER APPROACHES!