HAVANA – The Middle East is on the verge of a nuclear war triggered by a U.S. attack on Iran in the name of preventing the country from developing its own weapons, according to ageing Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro gestures during a visit to the Centre of World Economic Investigations (CIEM) in Havana July 13, 2010.

“To do this on the basis of a calculation that the Iranians are going to come running out to ask the Yankees for forgiveness is absurd,” Castro said. “They [the U.S.] will encounter a terrible resistance that will spread the conflict that cannot end up any other way than turning nuclear.”

The former Cuban president said Israel would throw the first bomb, but the risk that red buttons would also be pressed in Pakistan and India was latent.

Castro made the prediction on Cuban TV last night, in a dramatic return to public life after four years in near-seclusion.

“The U.S. is activating the machinery to destroy Iran,” he said. “But the Iranians have been building up a defensive force little by little for years.”

Castro said attacking Iran would have a very different result from invading Iraq. “When Bush attacked Iraq, Iraq was a divided country,” he said. “Iran is not divided.”

The Cuban leader also emphasised that India, Pakistan and Israel are the three nuclear powers who have refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

“The control that Israel has over the United States is enormous.”

“U.S. foreign policy is better described as the policy of total impunity.”