Japan did fight a defensive war against the United States. And yes, our government wanted to get involved in the war, and the oil embargoes and other economic vices we slapped on Japan put them in a tough position.

What they should have done, is ground their massive offensives in China and other areas to a halt and tried to work something out, but since the government was run by the military and saving face is of primary concern, there was no way in hell that was ever going to happen. Even though the attack on Wake, Pearl Harbor, and the Phillipines was a massively co-ordinated offensive strategem, it was designed to take out U.S. striking capability in the Pacific and force us to fight from a disadvantage.

They didn't take into account U.S. industrial capacity. Or the U.S. Marines.

Even if we lost at Midway, the Japanese could have only kept up the war for so long. It was industrially inevitable from the crack of dawn on December 7, 1941. They did fight a defensive war against the U.S.--a defensive war that they started, though.