How did Roosevelt provoke the pearl harbor attack?

Answer 1

Republicans like to claim he did, then and now. It was only by pointing out the secrets that would be revealed, such as that the US had the ability to decode parts of some Japanese codes, and thus could read parts of some intercepted Japanese radio messages, that the Republicans were dissuaded from making a huge spectacle of Senate and Congressional hearings during the middle of the biggest war the US has ever fought, in an effort to smear Roosevelt. They did hold the hearings just as soon as the war ended, and likely did extensive damage to US national security in the process, forcing the public revelation of US cryptanalytic capabilities. But what's that, when weighed in the balance against partisan political gain for the GOP?

The gist of the Republican theory goes like this. The Japanese invaded China. Instead of minding his own business Roosevelt protested this vicious and ongoing slaughter of an inoffensive people, who had done nothing to Japan. Japan became allied with Germany and Italy in the Axis, and when Germany overran France and installed a puppet regime, that French puppet regime - a tool of the Germans - "invited" Japan to occupy French Indochina (Vietnam), for "protective purposes", of course. Again, instead of minding his own business that man in the White House embargoed oil sales to Japan. (Roosevelt never intended that this embargo be absolute and final - he hoped to extract concessions and cooperation from the Japanese for each sale of oil thereafter, but perhaps never made this clear either to the Japanese or the Republicans).

Japan has no source of oil of its own, and was dependent on oil purchased from the US to run its tanks over innocent civilians, fuel its ships and planes. This situation was intolerable to the militarist warlords who were running Japan. Japan had only an 18 month supply of oil on hand, and thus, thinking they were completely cut off from their supply, they either had to knuckle under to US pressure and give up on the cherished dream of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" (with Japan as First Among Equals), or find another source of oil. There was plenty of oil in the Dutch East Indies (Malaysia today). Japan decided to seize this source of oil, and continue to follow her dream of conquest through aggression. At the midpoint between Japan and the Dutch East Indies are the Philippines - grabbed by the US in 1898, when the Imperialist Republicans were running the country. The Japanese were worried about attacks on their lines of communication between Japan and the Dutch East Indies from American forces in the Philippines, and, not realizing that unlike themselves an American president (in those days, at least) could not take his country to war whenever he wanted to, and not understanding that the people of the US were unwilling to support a war with Japan no matter how many of whoever's colonies Japan invaded, Japan decided to neutralize the potential threat from the Philippines by invading the Philippines. And having decided to do that, the Japanese decided, in for a penny, in for a pound, to simultaneously attack the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, to do as much damage as possible, to ensure that the US would not be able to interfere with the next phase of Japanese conquests.

So, the Republican theory is that the demon Roosevelt was able to correctly divine all these consequences flowing from his decision to get in the way of good Republican business selling oil to the Japanese warlords, with his embargo, and because he was a blood lust crazed arch fiend who wanted to drag an unwilling nation to war, he let events unfold as his evil genius had predicted.