Well yeah I understand it's perfectly possible they ordered Raithwall to nuke the opposition but you have to factor in the very different circumstances.

It's telling, to me at least, that the first thing the Occuria tell Ashe to do with the Nethicite is to "destroy Venat." Notice how they fly into a rage about Venat and the manufactured nethicite. Isn't it thus plausible that they only wanted the Empire completely destroyed in order to erase Venat's influence?

There would be no need for such extremes in Raithwall's time.