Basically as I understand it pretty much everyone saw a war between Japan and the US as inevitable, the real question was when rather than if.
I think that depends on your perspective. US policy regarding trade sanctions on Japan due to their aggression meant that Japan would need to acquire those resources by other means if they wanted to continue to expand. Since Japan considered the loss of face that would come from ceasing hostilities against China and to be unacceptable, they determined that a global war which they would inevitably lose to be their only option.
As an American, I can see parallels with the nascent US's own war of blatant aggression, the War of 1812. Deciding their honor had been besmirched by the impressment of its sailors and the overt military aid Britain was providing to the Native Americans that the United States was fighting in its own war of territorial expansion. With its own inflated sense of invincibility and self-importance, the US invaded the colonies of its transoceanic imperial rival and it just so happens they didn't want to be "liberated", either. Declaring war on a militarily and economically superior enemy eventually resulted in the invasion of the United States and the burning of Washington. We deserved that. After that, though, many of the parallels start to break down.
Now, obviously, there was another option. The Japanese could have taken the loss of face, stop expanding their empire, and sit out WWII. They'd have come out intact on the other side and been in a good position to exploit the power vacuum that the region would experience during the Chinese Civil War. With hindsight, this certainly seems to be best of the bad options available to Japan in 1941. The UK, France, and Israel were given a similar ultimatum in 1957 after Suez. In that case, they decided to cut their losses and not exacerbate their economic woes by declaring war against an economically superior enemy to maintain their empires or continue a policy of territorial expansion.
Sometimes, even world powers get put in a "no win" situation, but their decisions in those situations can have a major impact on just how much they lose. In the case of Japan in WWII, she lost almost everything. That was her choice. There
were other options. Were they good options? No, none of them were. Were any of them better than the one Japan's leaders went with? Most certainly.
Too often, when the Japanese talk about WWII, they act as if the US forced Japan into declaring war on them. I disagree completely with that. By eliminating the peaceful option that would result in a loss of face, Japan's leaders artificially limited the choices available to them. They have to take responsibility for that, not the US.
Cheers,
Logan