You are right, which is why we could not offer them qualified peace, or especially peace while still keeping their emperor. Their believe in their own divine right to savagery needed to be broken, and the only way that would happen was by forcing them to offer their own emperor to save their own skins. They needed to eat their arrogant words about wanting to die rather than surrender, and so the atom bombs were used to force them to admit their own hypocrisy to themselves - without which they could never be trusted under any so-called peace agreement because they would feel bound to violate it in the name of "honor."
Here's the mindset of these "honorable" people at the time the bombs needed to be dropped on them, from Japanese WWII Atrocities (as I have been viciously slandered for my "immorality" on this thread, let's take a look at some examples of the people who supposedly deserved trust, openness and an expectation of peaceful intent in surrender negotiations):
Nanking, China - Over 200,000 Chinese men used for bayonet practice, machine gunned, or set on fire. 20,000 women and girls were raped, killed or mutilated. The massacre of a quarter million people.
China - New officers were indoctrinated to the expectations of war by beheading Chinese captives. The last stage of the training of combat troops was to bayonet a living human and a trial of courage for the officers.
China - Japanese combat medical units moved to China where live bodies were plentiful. If the class was in sutures, a Chinaman was shot in the belly for doctors to practice. Amputations? - then arms were removed. Living people was more instructive than work on cadavers, the students need to get used to blood and screaming.
Manchuria - Bacterial warfare experiments conducted by the infamous medical unit 731. Bombs of anthrax and plague were tested on Chinese cities. This unit also practiced vivisection.
Korea - "Comfort Women" forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to repeatedly provide sex for Japanese soldiers throughout Asia are said to number between 80,000 and 200,000.
Malaya - Japanese troops decapitated 200 wounded Australians and Indians left behind when Australian troops withdrew through the jungle from Muar.
Singapore - Japanese soldiers bayonet 300 patients and staff of Alexandra military hospital 9 Feb 1942. British women had their hands behind their backs and repeatedly raped. All Chinese residents were interviewed and 5,000 selected for execution.
Wake Island - A construction crew of 1,200 mostly Idaho youths, captured when Wake Island fell, were shipped to Japanese prison camps. Five were beheaded to encourage good behavior on the trip. The Japanese decided to keep 100 of the civilian contractors on the island to complete the airbase, which became functional in 1943 . When US Navy planes attacked the island, the Japanese commander executed the civilians.
Dutch East Indies - Those Dutch accused of resisting Japan or participating in the destruction of the oil refineries had arms or legs chopped off. 20,000 men were forced into the ocean and machine gunned. 20,000 women and children were repeatedly raped, then many were killed.
Dutch Borneo - The entire white population of Balikpapan was executed.
Java - The entire white male population of Tjepu was executed. Women were raped. Survivors of USS Edsall (DD-219) are beheaded.
Philippines - Any soldier captured before the surrender was executed.
The Bataan Death March - 7,000 surrendered men died. Those that could not keep up the pace were clubbed, stabbed, shot, beheaded or buried alive. Once the prison camp had been reached, disease, malnutrition and brutality claimed up to 400 American and Filipinos - each day.
Thailand - 15,000 military prisoners and 75,000 native laborers died building a railroad between Bangkok and Rangoon. Bridge Over the River Kwai.
Doolittle Raid, Japan - Three of eight US airmen captured were executed. China - Twenty five thousand Chinese in villages through which the US flyers escaped were slaughtered in a three month reign of terror.
Midway - Japanese destroyers rescued three U.S. naval aviators; after interrogation, all three were murdered. One has stuck in the head with an axe and his hand chopped as he clung to the ship's railing. Two had weighted cans tied to their legs and were thrown overboard.
Attu - Japanese troops overran the medical aid station; after killing the doctors, they bayoneted the wounded.
Makin Atoll - Nine of Carlson's Marine raiders were left behind, hid for two weeks and surrendered. They were beheaded a few weeks later when a ship was not available to take them to a prisoner of war camp.
Milne Bay - In their few days at Milne Bay the Japanese had displayed remarkable brutality. Fifty-nine local people were murdered by the Japanese, often being bayoneted while held prisoner, and in many cases being tortured or mutilated. Not one of the 36 Australians captured by the Japanese survived. All were killed, and some were badly mutilated.
USS Sculpin - Forty-two of submarine Sculpin's crew were picked up by Yamagumo. One, severely wounded, was thrown overboard. Survivors were forced to work in the copper mines at Ashio until released at the end of the war.
Indian Ocean - Capt Ariizumi, ComSubRon One, commanded submarine I-8. He collected from the water and massacred 98 unarmed survivors of the Dutch merchantman he'd sunk. He repeated this performance with 96 prisoners from the American Jean Nicolet in the Maldives. He destroyed the lifeboats and dived, leaving 35 bound survivors on deck. 23 managed to untie their bonds and escape. I-26 was known to have rammed merchant lifeboats from Richard Hovey and machine-gunned those in the water.
Japan - Eight US airmen were used for medical dissection at Kyushu Imperial University with organs removed while the prisoners were still alive.
Lord Russell of Liverpool’s _The Knights of Bushido_ is still worth reading.