They thought that Pearl Harbor wouldn't start a war.

What did they think they were going to accomplish, then?

Japan was backed into a corner with the embargo

backed into a corner?

The embargo could have stopped as soon as their imperial ambitions on manchuria ended.

ah, they wanted to steal a chunk of china/korea, AND keep that cheap american crude flowing?

see you don't get things both ways sparky. They weren't baked into a corner any more than the US was backed into a corner by opec in the 70s - because being backed into a corner MEANS something. It's called death ground. This is a real thing, if you were anything but a random schmuck on the internet claiming not to be a cia plant, you might have studied it at the state dept or army war college.

being backed into a corner means you have no other choice; being on death ground - your only option remaining is to fight until the last.

japan was not backed into a corner, any more than it was on death ground - but they'd find out what both those terms meant in 5 short years. think of it, 5 short years to turn the entire production of this continent onto two TEENY TINY targets - japan and germany.