Rockets' Red Scare

Sure it's scary that the North Koreans are playing with bombs. But before we get out of control, Iraq-style, it's of primary importance to assess one thing that we ought to have the right think-tank experts on hand to be able to assess, or we're in big trouble.
That is, does Kim Jong-Il want to die?
It's a simple enough question. Because he is surely intelligent enough to know that lobbying any kind of missile at the United States will result not just in his downfall, but his death, too, as we would certainly level Pyongyang in retaliation. Mutual assured destruction has been the law of the earth for almost 60-years now, and it's held up primarily because the one power who can throw us into a long nuclear winter, Russia, is a thriving civlized culture that wants to survive. The question is whether the same thing can be said for both North Korea and Iran. Is their hatred of and paranoia over America driving them crazy enough to open Pandora's box.
The paranoia part of it is particularly intriguing. For all the highly paid talking heads on CNN the other day, it was an unknown e-mailer whose comment was read during "The Situation Room" who made the most insightful observation.
The question is not whether we are taking a strong enough stand against Iran and North Korea, the observer wrote, but whether our president declaring these countries part of an axis of evil, then invading part of that axis, is what's driving them to behave this way in the first place.'
A question well worth pondering.