Perhaps a better way to say this, might be as follows:   Were the US to unilaterally get rid of their nukes, then Kim Jong Il would be deemed to be anything  BUT nuts.  Quite to the contrary, he'd ultimately be seen as just be one more of history's bullies, killing millions on his path towards world dominance.  The very thing that makes him "nuts" is his knowledge that to launch one of his nukes would indeed bring a retaliation of almost incomprehensible to the human mind.   

I SO wish we didn't need that doctrine of "mutually assured destruction," but until somebody can come with something better, and that actually works, it seems the best we have.  And like it or not, it HAS worked now for quite a while.