Netanyahu says his attack on Iran was to avert an existential threat. He may have made it worse | Jonathan Freedland

Benjamin Netanyahu was talking about the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb back in the 1990s and he has scarcely let up since.

For decades he has believed that a nuclear Iran would represent the one truly existential threat to Israel and that military force is the only sure way to prevent it.

By his actions, he may only have accelerated the very danger he has feared for so long.

Jonathan Freedland says Israel 's attack may have been spectacular but it is bound to fail.

Iran 's hardliners will now become more determined to acquire a nuclear weapon.

They will have learned what might be called the North Korea lesson.

A nuclear weapon will only become more desirable and a tinderbox region will become more dangerous.