Why Panama suggested sabotage rather than a carrier strike

Why is the Panama Canal not one of the alternative carrier-strike targets?

It was too distant for the carrier exercise, though Japan might instead have attacked the locks with commandos aboard a disguised merchant ship.

Panama is excluded from the carrier-target comparison because of its distance from Japan. A sabotage alternative would use a Japanese freighter or liner disguised as a vessel on a plausible commercial voyage. Commandos concealed aboard could enter the canal and demolish lock infrastructure while transiting. The answer separates the strategic value of a target from the operational method needed to reach it.