It is important to be aware of significant past events and naturally the date but technically speaking the Americans had already become involved in the European war by late 1941 with their aggressive patrols protecting convoys. Lend/Lease was happening and whatever the economic harm it caused to Britain (part of the intention, given trade issues) it was speeding up the supply of war material to Britain. Pearl Harbour was not a bolt out of the blue – the US and Britain were well aware of Japanese aims for Pacific and East Asian domination.
That had been apparent for many years and a Pearl Harbour style attack somewhere was inevitable and in fact similar actions had been happening in China for several years before. Shanghai, Nanjing etc. The evidence tends to show that the US was eager to prevent the Japanese expansion but lacked a suitable trigger – the loss of a few semi-obsolete battleships with what by the standards of WW2 was pretty minimal casualties provided the necessary trigger and just by happenstance the important vessels, the carriers and their accompanying task force, were at sea.
In real terms as far as the defeat of Fascism goes it was the Battle of Britain that saved the West. If Britain had fallen and the British Government and the fleet had been forced to evacuate to Canada I doubt if the US would have bothered with fighting the Germans. The Dulles Brothers and their right wing supporters and colleagues in the American Government would have quickly done what they actually did do as the war progressed, which was make their secretive deals to bolster German industry and protect its connections in the US. An undefeated Luftwaffe plus a German Army backed by not having to guard its back against attack from the British Isles would have easily rolled right over the Russians who in 1940 and early 1941 were disastrously weakened by the Stalin purges.
So in a way Pearl Harbour was important to the fight against Fascism in the real politik of 1940 – 1941 in that it forced the US to do the right thing instead of relying on manipulative trade deals (either through Lend/Lease or the Dulles network helping to bolster German production). Without it, if for instance the Japanese struck at Singapore leaving Pearl Harbour alone I’m fairly sure the outcome would have been less optimistic. Pearl Harbour forced the US to abandon its flirtation with trying to fight a trade war rather than a real one.
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