It would have been the Philippines and not Iwo Jima...and MacArthur had been wanting to hold onto the First Marine Division ever since their New Britain campaign (which was also poorly supported, but on MacArthur's watch).
The defects on Peleliu were not directly attributable to Nimitz. It was the division commander who failed his Marines in that campaign, and did so from the very end of the New Britain operation. Rupertus was the one who resisted committing Army troops to the fight, who kept his men in the line longer than they should have been, and failed to oversee the preparations for the invasion itself (which included going ashore with about half the tanks the First Marine Division normally had...and tanks would have been quite useful in many areas of Peleliu).
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