65 years later: "Pearl Harbor in reverse"?

Can the 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. be compared to the 2003 U.S. attack on Iraq?

From a Newsweek, March 22, 2003 interview with famed historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.:

Arthur Schlesinger: "...[W]e’ve made a fatal mis-turn in our foreign policy by abandoning the doctrine of containment-plus-deterrence (which won the Cold War peacefully), and adopting as the basis of our foreign policy preventive war. Preventive war, anticipatory self-defense, was the doctrine with which the Japanese justified Pearl Harbor. FDR, an earlier American president, said that it was a date that will live in infamy. And now the Bush doctrine is a doctrine of preventive war, which makes America the self-appointed world’s judge, jury and executioner. However benign the motives, it’s bound to have a corrupting effect on our leadership. I think the whole notion of America as the world’s judge, jury and executioner is a tragically mistaken notion."

Newsweek: "Robert Kennedy called preventive war 'Pearl Harbor in reverse.' Is that what we’re seeing now?"

Arthur Schlesinger: "That’s what we’re seeing now. And no wonder we look to the rest of the world as a lumbering bully. I regard this with deep gloom."

(The interview is here.)