The guy looks like he is on Death's door. Maybe he just wants to go out with a bang.
...And given how much of an insane attention whore Kim is, I wouldn't put it past him to trigger some kind of "last hurrah" for his divine dynasty if it came to that.
It's terrifying, really. Kim Jong Ill can send off the nukes and then pass onto the afterlife without having to deal with the decades of repercussions all the while going down as the man who nuked America. With North Korea's hyperbolic propaganda machine I could see him being hailed as the man who ended Western Civilization and brain-washed masses believing it. They could even give his title an upgrade and call him The God of Victory or something like that. *shudders.*