This is a pointless exercise. He had no choice, it was either him or Zod, Zod said basically the same thing. Zod would have not stopped until Superman and the Earth were destroyed, or Zod was dead.
It was obvious he didn’t want to kill him, and gave him MANY MANY MANY opportunities to stop.
“Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.”
Please reread what I wrote. It’s pointless to debate what he could or couldn’t have done. He did exactly what the writers wrote him to do. We could “what if” back and forth forever (and of course some people enjoy doing just that for the fun of it [who would win - Capt. Marvel vs. Supes etc. etc.]).
The point is: The writers wrote Superman as a killer. I’m discussing what a sorry state our culture and society is in that the writers knew that most *UN-Superman* act would resonate with so many people.
Read Darrow and Miller’s “Hard Boiled” if you want to see where we’re headed. We’ve strayed too far from “The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot”.