Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is telling Iran that Israel can “strike anywhere.” But so can its enemies.

Iran’s latest barrage of missiles against Israel was again easily repelled. But two blasts near Israel’s embassy in the outskirts of Copenhagen today show how the Middle East’s spiral into a multi-front war has unknowable ramifications for the entire region and beyond.

Few could have foreseen how far the violence would expand when Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 from its base in Gaza, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 others, followed a day later by Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon.

Israel’s response, reducing the Palestinian enclave to rubble and claiming the lives of more than 40,000 people, ignited global protests and spurred allegations of war crimes, which Israel denies.

Netanyahu has promised to repay in kind yesterday’s long-range Iranian missile launches against his country. How such region-rattling reprisals might transpire hinges on targets and timing.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, one of Netanyahu’s most potent rivals, argues it’s the moment for a long-promised strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

The focus now is on whether Iran has lost face, as its firepower appears simply no match for Israel. Questions are also being asked about whether Netanyahu was justified in defying pleas from the US and others for caution, and if escalation — taking out Hezbollah’s leader and a ground incursion in Lebanon — was the right move.

Lebanon is practically a failed state. Its government says a million people have been displaced. Meanwhile, Turkey is taking measures within Syria to halt a new surge of refugees and fears an unstoppable flow of people fleeing Iran.

Washington seems in a bind too, a month from the US elections. President Joe Biden doesn’t want his legacy to be one of unprecedented instability and is keen to avoid denting Vice President Kamala Harris’ chances of prevailing over Donald Trump.

We’re in dangerous and unpredictable new territory.

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