It doesn't seem to me you can push the pause button on terror.

Don't push the button. The button is bad.

to dismantle the infrastructure of terror.

Is there a panic button I can hit? Or better yet, a button that will pause this whole scene while I figure out how I want to play it?
But no. That's not how it works in real life.

sort of hit the pause button on that.

I’ve always thought you should be able to freeze time. This way you could hit the Pause button at a really good point in your life so that nothing changes