Dhaka, April 23 -- Former US secretary of state John Kerry says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously proposed a war with Iran to three previous US presidents, but they had all declined, reports NDTV.

"Obama said no. Bush said no. President Biden said no. I mean, I was part of those conversations," he said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

They had all decided to avoid the war because they had not "exhausted all the remedies of peaceful process", Kerry said.

"And speaking as a veteran of the Vietnam War, where decisions like that were so critical, we were lied to about what that war was about, and the lesson of that war and of Iraq is don't lie to the American people and then ask them to send their sons and...