The original plan was to take everything they wanted, and then seek a peace settlement where America and England accepted the Japanese conquests. The military leaders did not think we had the stomach for a long, costly campaign to retake what Japan had conquered. They seriously underestimated American will after Pearl Harbor. What Japan wanted in 1942 was our surrender to Japan’s new empire, something I have no doubt Obama would be willing to accept.
In a massive miscalculation they thought they could intimidate us into just leaving them alone and to eventually lift our embargo of them.
Boy, did they screw up!