I have similarly watched the whole thing.

the question that kept occurring to me was - all very well - but where would that have left Abraham Lincoln when the civil war wasn't turning out to be a picnic.

And what of Roosevelt's position. he knew that war was the preferable option - yet his congress opposed him - right up to Pearl harbour, as I remember.

Both Bush and Nixon could have argued that they were in a better position to judge than Joe Public - having better intelligence and more access to a wider view. After all the Vietnamese administrattion that USA lost were not nice people. they treated their citizens very badly.