December 6, heck, I'm an oft criticized neocon. With vision, 1939 was the time, while FDR may have been an anglophile, the writing was on the wall, we should have aggressively come to the support of our British and French allies. Not necessarily a declaration of war, but at least open, direct support, and enough honest conversation to shut up the then Cindy Sheehans, aka America Firsters, bund supporters et al. In that context would Japan have attacked, who knows, would have been a different world when their time arrived.
As I;m sure you are aware, the political maelstrom of the day precluded
FDR from taking any clearer stand than he did. There was a very powerful, vociferous mindset of isolationism within our government that is easy to chastise
from the perspective of history. FDR was absolutely in the pro-war camp but had little room for maneuvering at the time, which has given rise to all the Pearl Harbor conspiracy talk of FDR, Churchill knowing about the attack in advance but allowing
it to happen for obvious reasons.
“we should have aggressively come to the support of our British and French allies. Not necessarily a declaration of war, but at least open, direct support”
We did to an extent, as noted in Germany’s declaration of war: [The Government of the United States having violated in the most flagrant manner and in ever increasing measure all rules of neutrality in favor of the adversaries of Germany and having continually been guilty of the most severe provocations toward Germany ever since the outbreak of the European war, provoked by the British declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, has finally resorted to open military acts of aggression.
On September 11, 1941, the President of the United States publicly declared that he had ordered the American Navy and Air Force to shoot on sight at any German war vessel...]
I like using this analogy with the lefties when they whine about international law (usually falsely claiming Operation Iraqi Freedom violates international law), putting them in a position where they have to defend Hitler against FDR’s aggression. Here’s a nice archive (called the Avalon Project) I find very interesting:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/gerdec41.htm