The director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned from his post on Tuesday in protest of Donald Trump’s ongoing war against Iran. Joe Kent, a former Army Ranger and CIA paramilitary officer, announced that he “cannot in good conscience support” the war, and that Iran was not an imminent threat to the United States, which the president and his administration have claimed in order to justify attacking the nation.
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in a statement released through his office and circulated on social media. “As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”
Kent rose to prominence among the MAGA right as a frequent guest on the now-defunct Fox News show of Tucker Carlson, and ran two failed congressional campaigns in his home state of Washington.
His resignation is the first high-profile departure from a Trump administration official directly related to the ongoing war against Iran. Kent’s citing of Israel’s role in pressing the United States into the conflict echoes divisions within Republican politics over the amount of leverage Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are exerting over American foreign policy decisions.
Kent addressed Trump directly in his public resignation. “Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” he wrote.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory,” Kent added. “This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.”
