Why wouldn't the same reasoning hold true for Pearl Harbor. The Japs didn't take over the Islands.
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Again, Pearl Harbor (NOT Honolulu) was the focus of the attack because the Japanese strategy was to conquer the closer Pacific Islands, and to do that, they sank most of the US Navy's Pacific Fleet. If the US had not managed to swing into high gear and replace the fleet, and had not managed to defeat the Japanese at Midway and elsewhere, the Japanese would surely have tried to take Hawaii.
I still have a US Silver Certificate my uncle, who served in the Marines in Hawaii, gave me: it has a brown Federal Reserve seal, not a blue or green one,and has the word H A W A I I written on it in huge letters on the back side. The purpose was to declare all such money worthless in the event of a Japanese takeover. There were contingency plans for this to happen.
The Pearl Harbor air raid surely terrified a lot of people, but the main goal was to cripple the Navy, not invade the Islands. If people were terrorized, it was an added bonus.
The Dolittle Raid on Tokyo did little damage, compared with later attacks, but it was intended to terrify the Japanese and force the people there to question the pompous declarations of victory that the Imperial Government was making to its people. It also served to cheer up the Americans. Rather like the attacks on Kabul shortly after 9-11.
I am sure that Japanese and American historians would agree on this.
