Photos: The history of Netanyahu’s rhetoric on Iran’s nuclear ambitions

In Pictures

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has warned of an imminent threat from an Iranian nuclear bomb for more than 30 years.

For more than three decades, a familiar refrain has echoed from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.

Since 1992, when Netanyahu addressed Israel’s Knesset as an MP, he has consistently claimed that Tehran is only years away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. “Within three to five years, we can assume that Iran will become autonomous in its ability to develop and produce a nuclear bomb,” he declared at the time. The prediction was later repeated in his 1995 book, Fighting Terrorism.

The sense of imminent threat has repeatedly shaped Netanyahu’s engagement with United States officials. In 2002, he appeared before a US congressional committee, advocating for the invasion of Iraq and suggesting that both Iraq and Iran were racing to obtain nuclear weapons. The US-led invasion of Iraq followed soon after, but no weapons of mass destruction were found.