Paragon21XX posted...
The Stormcloaks winning the civil war is just as bad for the Thalmor as an Imperial victory.
Highly debatable.
The Stormcloaks winning cleaves another province off of the already-weakened Empire and would justify a full-on Thalmor invasion of Skyrim. Skyrim is nowhere near strong enough to fight of the Aldmeri Dominion on their own, given that the Empire as a whole couldn't even overcome them, and the Empire would be in no position to assist given that all of their military assets just got thrown out of the province.
Keeping the Empire together makes the Dominion's job substantially harder, which is a good thing.
Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!