In article ,
Dave Smith wrote:

American leadership in WW II? That is where we differ. England and its
Commonwealth Allies were fighting in Europe

Because they'd been pushed to the wall and couldn't put it off any
longer, once Poland was attacked.

The U.S. was limited, then, to providing logistical support (Lend
Lease), some convoy support (USS Reuben James), and trying desperately
to build up its military forces to something resembling a useful level.
At the beginning of 1940, the U.S. military ranked around 16th, behind
Polands.

and in SE Asia long before the US finally got involved.

Try again. Japan's attack on the Malay peninsula got the Commonwealth
involved in fighting in SE Asia.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Army began arriving at Kota Bharu.
This was just a diversionary force and the main landings in the Malay
peninsula did not take place until the next day, December 8, at Singora
and Patani on the north-east coast.

A diversion one day before Pearl Harbor (the two locales being on
different sides of the IDL), the main initial attack on the same day.

I suppose some might call one day "long before".

It's weak enough to be countered by noting that a U.S.N. gunboat, the
Panay, had already been attacked by Japanese forces in China, in 1937.
Both would be similarly silly claims.