Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad has predicted that the United States will get Israel to bomb Iran before the superpower moves in.

He also claimed that the US is being driven by an anti-Islam agenda and this is why Muslim nations are in its sights.

According to him, the US will urge Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, just as the Tel Aviv regime did to Iraq before Washington launched a full-scale war.

"(The) US seems to want other people to fight for them," he was quoted as saying by Bernama in response to questions on the Iran-North Korea nuclear issue.

Mahathir, who stepped down as prime minister in October 2003, said the US would attack Iran because it thinks the Islamic nation does not have weapons of mass destruction.

"They attacked Iraq because they know (it) has no weapons of mass destruction," said the former premier, who is known for his vitriolic criticism of both the US and Israel.

As for North Korea, he said it is unlikely that the US will attack the country although Pyongyang has openly declared that it has nuclear weapons.

"North Korea, the agenda is different. It is not just weapons of mass destruction, there is also this element of hatred against Muslims. There is a religious element in this thing. If it is non-Muslim, the US will not attack."

Furthermore, he said the US would exercise a little bit more caution in handling the North Korean nuclear issue because the country could do a lot of things with its weapons of mass destruction.

Disunity among Muslims

The US, he said, believed that it could do anything it liked to the Muslim countries for several reasons - because Muslim countries were divided; there are a few Muslim countries which support the US against other Muslim countries; andbecause Muslim countries are incapable of retaliation.

Mahathir said the only retaliation will come from such groups as Al-Qaeda, which is alleged resorts to acts of terrorism.

He reiterated that the root causes must be identified in dealing with terrorism and this includes the decisions to take Palestine and give it to the Jews and expel the Palestinians from their country without compensation.

However, Mahathir felt that powerful countries would not act in settling the root causes of terrorism because they wanted to uphold Israel at any cost even if the whole world were threatened with terrorism.

This, he stressed, was due to the Israelis having a strong hold over the most powerful nations.

Muslim countries, on the other hand, continue to fight and sabotage each other, which worsens the situation, he added.

"The Muslim world should go back to Islam. The teaching of Islam. The fundamental teaching of Islam that all Muslims are brothers and Muslims should not kill another Muslim," he said.

He also expressed doubt over Israel's commitment to the Palestine-Israel ceasefire agreement.