More like...Elbaf. Trying to forcefully include Elbaf under her could have never worked for a couple of reasons:
1. As much as Big Mom wankers like to blab about "5 y.o Lilnlin destroying Elbaf" (she destroyed half a village), Elbaf is considered the strongest country in the world by Linlin and her goons themselves, which scales it above their Tottoland and Kaido's Wano in terms of power. In a 1v1 they would have lost that battle.
2. That aside, if such a battle did somehow occur, the other emperors would have immediately tried to take advantage of Big Mom's precarious situation and make moves of their own. Hell, the Marine Headquarters might have intervened as well, making the situation even more messy and dangerous than it already would have been.
Simply put, it would have spelled the end of Big Mom as an entity in the New World. Diplomacy was the only way to get something done, it failing "because of" Lola natually got a power hungry individual like Big Mom more rabid than ever. She saw her real golden chance getting blown away.