Whether Victor Davis Hanson revises it or not, the United States provoked the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was done to assist Stalin--who was pretending to be a US ally--by keeping the Japanese occupied in the Pacific while Stalin 'helped' Mao take China for communism. Remember, too, that Roosevelt's government was chock-full of Communists whose interests were NOT congruent with the interests of the US as a whole.
By the beginning of 1941 it was perfectly clear to England and the US that Japan would have to be neutralized. So Roosevelt shut off trade with Japan and closed the Panama Canal to Japanese ships, cutting off the flow of petroleum and other materials into Japan.
The Brits knew what was happening. Churchill desperately needed the US as an ally against Germany and Germany had been scrupulous in avoiding attacks on US shipping. Roosevelt, therefore, had to use a back-door method, and Japan was the back door.
British historian Russell Grenfell, a captain in the Royal Navy, wrote In 1952:No reasonably informed person can now believe that Japan made a villainous, unexpected attack on the United States. An attack was not only fully expected but was actually desired. It is beyond doubt that President Roosevelt wanted to get his country into war, but for political reasons was most anxious to ensure that the first act of hostility came from the other side; for which reason he caused increasing pressure to be put on the Japanese, to a point that no self-respecting nation could endure without resort to arms. Japan was meant by the American President to attack the United States.15
Was Japan's power structure a group of perfectly innocent lambs? Nope.
Were they idiots to take on the US in the Pacific? That's debatable--but as it turned out, yes they were.
There's plenty more actual history at the link. Perhaps VDH should read it.
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