In the pale moonlight is DS9, they needed the romulans to join against the dominion/cardassians so he did some unethical things that garak came up with to get them on side.

Picard is a paragon of federation virtue, and he was never in a situation where all the options were just as bad. There always a clear way forward.

(Though I do have to wonder what was said about data blasting the aqueduct.)