Nonproliferation nonsense

Today in Prague, President Obama made a vague commitment to work towards a world without nuclear weapons. While he acknowledged the difficulty of such a campaign — underlined by North Korea’s launch of a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile, which could be armed with a nuclear warhead, last night — the president criticized “fatalists” who say that a no-nuke world is unrealistic:

For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.

Um, what? Does anyone want to explain why? And shouldn’t we be clear about the fact that the spread of nuclear weapons is not the only alternative to their complete elimination? Like, isn’t the maintenance of a system that has basically eliminated great-power war something that’s worthwhile? Shouldn’t we be more interested in strengthening those regimes that help to secure nuclear weapons under the control of those governments that can be held responsible for their use or proliferation to terrorist groups and other non-state actors?