A senior advisor to Rudy Giuliani says the next Chief Executive must discharge President Bush's 'responsibility' of waging war on Iran.

Writing for the February edition of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz said if the next US president doesn't have the 'courage' to attack Iran, the outcome will be catastrophic for Washington.

"We had all better pray that there will be enough time for the next president to discharge the responsibility that Bush will have been forced to pass on," Podhoretz added.

"If not - God help us all - the stage will have been set for the outbreak of a nuclear war that will become as inescapable then as it is avoidable now," continued the 78-year-old politician.

Podhoretz, who is the foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, stated last year that President George W. Bush would attack Iran under the pretense of frustrating Tehran's 'nuclear ambitions'.

This is while the neocon Czar admitted the December 3 US National Intelligence Estimate, which conceded that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, made it 'politically impossible' for the Bush administration to launch a military strike on Iran.

MD/AA