At the end of last week (Nov. 8), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put on his best frown and reiterated that Israel would know how to defend itself — in other words, to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. Netanyahu’s stormy diatribe against the United States and the five other members of the forum conducting negotiations with Iran is reminiscent of the incident dubbed “the hot cassette affair” of January 1993.

Netanyahu, who was running for Likud party leader, confessed in a live television interview to having had an extramarital affair. He claimed that “one man, surrounded by a small gang of criminals” had threatened that if he didn’t pull out of the race, a tape would be revealed showing Netanyahu allegedly having sex with a woman who was not his legally wedded wife. A police investigation launched after Netanyahu filed a complaint did not come up with any indication that Netanyahu had been the victim of extortion or that there was any sign of a cassette.

Now, as then, Netanyahu was quick to run off at the mouth about the “deal of the century” that the Iranian regime had managed to squeeze out of world leaders, before an announcement emerged in Geneva that a deal with Iran had been born. In fact, a day later it became known that an agreement had not been signed. In an interview with CBS, Netanyahu said, “Iran maintains its capability to enrich material for a nuclear bomb, … so Iran effectively becomes a threshold nation, threshold nuclear power nation. … Iran gives practically nothing and it gets a hell of a lot.”

One cannot discount Netanyahu’s claim that the agreement being negotiated in Geneva will enable the Iranians to enjoy a significant easing of sanctions and to continue developing their nuclear program. What’s more, many experts are warning that a six-month time period will allow Iran to reach the stage where a bombing of its nuclear sites will involve environmental damage similar to the proportions of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. This would mean giving up on the military option and enabling the Islamic Republic of Iran to become a nuclear power. On the other hand, these same experts have said again and again that bombing the reactors would delay completion of the Iranian nuclear program by no more than two years.