And if you think that the Japanese were right to attack us, you had better hope we never meet. I may ask for your property or goods at whatever price I want, and when you refuse shoot you and take it. And unless you are a hypocrite, you would have no grounds to complain.
Did I say that? I said that that when you put another country in a position where its political leadership has to either 1. publicly give in to your demands, which will undoubtedly cost them their careers, and in 1941 Japan very possibly their lives, or 2. go to war, you really ought to be very prepared for the other guy choose what is behind curtain number 2. Even if you think, correctly that in the long wrong run, it will be a disastrous choice. In the short term, expanding the war made the War Party leadership heroes in Japan. Short term thinking is very popular with politicians in a fix.