"There will be a real blow up," Eagleburger told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. "Somebody will end up using one of these things.

"If Iran gets the weapon it's going to use it," added Eagleburger, who served in four presidential administrations, including a brief stint as secretary of State under former President George H.W. Bush. "I think they're on the way to getting it, and we're going to let it happen.

"And when I say 'we,'" he continued, "I don't just mean the U.S. I mean the civilized world, the Russians.

"They are going to regret someday what they have done because their neighbor, Iran, is going to have a nuclear weapon and it's going to throw it around like mad. And Israel will certainly be the first target. And the world's going to go to war over this. It very much has a potential of happening . . . As sure as I'm sitting here, I know it's coming."

Eagleburger said international nonproliferation went awry "when we let the North Koreans get the weapon."

That event, he said, started the world "down the wrong track and we've been on it ever since.