While I do understand your point, and partially(!) agree with you, I was answering to
"Wait, so pre-emptive wars are okay, so long as it's not the US conducting them?
which seems to make two invalid assumptions.
The only morally okay solution is, apparently, for the US to roll over and die whenever anyone asks nicely.
Personally (and I hope relevantly), I wonder what kind of results we would have ended up with the whole Iraq thing if the UN WMD inspectors had been allowed to finish their job.
I wonder if that works in the other direction? Let's say the US decides to invade Canada. The EU, shocked by this, stations fleets nearby, embargoes the US, and provides the Canadians with supplies. Would you guys claim that the US is backed into a corner and has no choice but to launch a pre-emptive war against the EU?
No, but it wouldn't be a complete surprise. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that the "inevitable military response" was rather inevitable considering that the Japan seems to have been quite militarily aggressive at that time. And no, that is not okay. I don't know (or perhaps remember) enough about the politics and communications between the US and Japan at that time, to have an educated opinion on whether or not Japan was baited to attack.