Hassan Nasrallah was a terrorist with American blood on his hands. Across decades, his leadership of Hezbollah destabilized the Middle East and led to the
President Biden and I do not want to see conflict in the Middle East escalate into a broader regional war. We have been working on a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border so that people can safely return home on both sides of that border. Diplomacy remains the best path forward to protect civilians and achieve lasting stability in the region.
...and that is why we've handed billions upon billions of dollars worth of military equipment to the side actively committing a genocide, and why I'm putting out a statement condoning the political assassination of one of the people who we would theoretically be working with to create peace in the first place.
Death, and I cannot emphasize this enough, to America.
In the mouths of western politicians, the word "diplomacy" is synonymous with unconditional surrender. They would rather burn the world to the ground than accept that they can't get all of their maximalist demands and engage in actual good faith negotiations with their adversaries, trying to work out a compromise.
IIRC the damage inflicted by the atomic bombings weren't especially noteworthy compared to the rest of the bombing campaign, and it was more a way to test out their new toys. If the nukes hadn't been used but conventional bombing had continued, it would likely have had a similar result. This video by Shaun lays out a pretty compelling case that the Japanese surrender was due to the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria.
This is all ignoring of course that despite the insistence of unconditional surrender, the Americans accepted surrender with conditions and allowed the emperor to continue to hold his titles anyway. There's definitely something to be said about taking maximalist positions just to make a point even when they don't actually care about several of the goals that make up those positions.
...and that is why we've handed billions upon billions of dollars worth of military equipment to the side actively committing a genocide, and why I'm putting out a statement condoning the political assassination of one of the people who we would theoretically be working with to create peace in the first place.
Death, and I cannot emphasize this enough, to America.
In the mouths of western politicians, the word "diplomacy" is synonymous with unconditional surrender. They would rather burn the world to the ground than accept that they can't get all of their maximalist demands and engage in actual good faith negotiations with their adversaries, trying to work out a compromise.
As seen in Nagasaki and Hiroshima
IIRC the damage inflicted by the atomic bombings weren't especially noteworthy compared to the rest of the bombing campaign, and it was more a way to test out their new toys. If the nukes hadn't been used but conventional bombing had continued, it would likely have had a similar result. This video by Shaun lays out a pretty compelling case that the Japanese surrender was due to the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria.
This is all ignoring of course that despite the insistence of unconditional surrender, the Americans accepted surrender with conditions and allowed the emperor to continue to hold his titles anyway. There's definitely something to be said about taking maximalist positions just to make a point even when they don't actually care about several of the goals that make up those positions.