“And FDR knew who the enemy was, and went all-in for total victory. “
FDR went for Unconditional Surrender, which while it sounds appealing to most civilians is a very bad idea. Your enemy figures that he has everything to lose through surrender and it guarantees that the fighting will go on much longer than is necessary.
I have to agree with that. In fact, I've wondered how Germany would have behaved if a negotiated peace had been possible. Perhaps there would have been other attempts on Hitler's life (or a coup), and the war might have ended much earlier.
Nevertheless, I'll take FDR's unconditional surrender strategy over the LBJ/Bush II "hearts and minds" strategy any day.