How can you be sure he doesn't want to see the soufflé totally collapse? Today he's focused on tax cuts. It doesn't sound like he's on a wartime footing anymore to me.
Contrast this with his father's "rallying the troops" mode before Desert Storm. I remember it well. From the time he decided to go to war soon after Saddam invaded, he gave a new speech every day equating Saddam with Hitler and the like. None of the speeches from August of 1990 to January of 1991 were about tax cuts (maybe because he already knew he was about to go back on his "read my lips" promise and raise them instead, but that's another kettle of fish).