Over the weekend, President Donald Trump tweeted that if Iran threatens the United States, it will be "the official end of Iran."
It's the latest development in the administration's escalation of rhetoric against Iran, which so far has included blaming the country for a mysterious incident involving oil tankers in the Persian Gulf earlier this month.
Joining Boston Public Radio to weigh in on this and other topics in international news was Charles Sennott, the founder of The GroundTruth Project and a WGBH News analyst.
"America is becoming the boy who cries wolf," Sennott said.
"We keep talking about what we're going to do, and blustering, and we have a president who sends out tweets that sound ominous and bellicose, and then he gets distracted and moves on," he continued.
Sennott said the United States has not clearly articulated what it is demanding from Iran, and has even arguably worsened the situation by pulling out of the Obama-era nuclear deal.
Sennott went on to say that Trump's "ominous and bellicose" tweets could even jeopardize national security.
"That is something that is going to undercut our security [and] undercut our position in the world, and I think there's a real need to step back and reflect on: How often are we going to let the rhetoric of this White House go on when it really can rattle the world?" Sennott asked.
