Here's a hypothetical.........
''What if'' Japan, as part of the tripartite Axis, didn't make the mistake of attacking Pearl Harbour, and instead just attacked the European colonial possessions while doing their best to placate the U.S., would America declare war?
Yamamoto feared that Japan did not have the resources to win a war with the U.S., so reluctantly advocated a surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl harbour and then overrun South East Asia, fortify island bases and bleed the Americans so much that they would eventually think it wasn't worth the effort.
But by making that undeclared attack on PH, it stirred up a hornets nest, and made sure the Americans would never stop until Japan was crushed.
The attack against Hawaii was in fact the worst possible thing that Japan could have done. U.S. plans were, barring any direct attack against the Philippines or U.S. possessions, was a strictly defensive posture against Japan. The short term goal of the Japanese was to obtain the oil supplies, rubber, and other strategic materials from the East Indian possessions of the Netherlands, Great Britain, and France. Given the isolationest temperament of the U. S. Congress at the time, is it questionable, even doubtful, that the United States would have responded directly to the seizure of those foreign Colonial possessions?
When the Japanese moved into French Indo China the U.S. placed the oil embargo but didn't threaten war.