Picture the meeting.
Someone walks into the Oval Office and explains that the B61 bomb has a dial on it.
Turn the yield down to 0.3 kilotons, against the 15 that leveled Hiroshima.
Contained blast, minimal fallout, tunnels under Pickaxe Mountain sealed forever.
Problem solved.
Matthew Hoh, a former Marine and State Department officer, has been dreading that conversation for months, and he can already hear the line that closes it:
"Only Harry Truman was brave enough to use them."
Flattery aimed precisely at a president who prizes being called decisive.
What no pitch covers is the morning after.
Iran does not capitulate to a sealed tunnel.
Ninety two million people do not surrender because a mountain collapsed.
And the phrase "usable nuclear weapon" stops being a Pentagon abstraction for every other country on earth.
Eighty years of restraint, talked away with a dial and a compliment.
@MatthewPHoh @WeTheBrandon
