Kamar-Taj was far too dangerous.
Even if Nick Fury agreed to keep working with it, that cooperation would mean nothing.
Neither humanity nor S.H.I.E.L.D. could hold Kamar-Taj accountable. In terms of sheer power, they were nowhere close.
So any so-called cooperation would eventually become a relationship of dominance.
In the end, S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury included, would be kept firmly beneath Kamar-Taj, with no chance to break free.
A powerful institution would be forced to answer to some obscure place.
That was too dangerous.
And Nick Fury, the king of spies, could not accept being pushed around by Zhang Yang, a boy of seventeen or eighteen.
Nick Fury simply could not accept it.
That was why he ultimately agreed with Pierce.
They would use an incident to turn public opinion around the world against Kamar-Taj.
After all, Kamar-Taj's purpose was to protect Earth.
Surely, then, it would not dare harm civilians.
That would give Nick Fury grounds to negotiate with Kamar-Taj.
Of course, Nick Fury had considered the worst-case scenario.
Kamar-Taj might lash out.
If it did,
Nick Fury had a response in mind.
Project Insight. Nuclear weapons.
Admittedly, when Pierce first proposed the plan, even Nick Fury thought it went too far.
But after thinking it through,
he saw it as perhaps the only way to bring Kamar-Taj under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s control.
It was just like the Mutants.
Once their social standing fell and those in power steered the public toward persecuting them,
even the most powerful Mutants had become willing to submit to government oversight.
With that precedent, Nick Fury believed Pierce's plan could work.
He had to admit it.
Pierce knew him well.
After all their years as friends,
Nick Fury thought Pierce might be the only person who truly understood him.
And Nick Fury was just as confident