Joe Kent, one of the United States’ top counterterrorism officials, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his opposition to the Iran war and what he said was Israel’s influence over the Trump administration’s policies.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Mr. Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote in a social media post. “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.”
Mr. Kent is the highest-ranking Trump administration official to quit over the Iran war. His resignation bluntly exposes how the Iran war is expanding fissures in President Trump’s coalition. Mr. Kent is a close friend of Tucker Carlson, the Trump ally who has emerged as the sharpest critic of the war.
In a brief interview, Mr. Carlson praised Mr. Kent’s resignation.
“Joe is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut,” Mr. Carlson said. “He’s leaving a job that gave him access to highest-level relevant intelligence. The neocons will now try to destroy him for that. He understands that and did it anyway.”
Mr. Kent has long had a penchant for conspiracy theories, claiming without evidence that intelligence officials had a hand in the violence around the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. And some Republicans were quick to call out Mr. Kent’s remarks on Israel.
Representative Don Bacon, a former brigadier general in the Air Force who serves on the Armed Services Committee, reposted Mr. Kent’s letter with the comment “good riddance.”
“Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government,” Mr. Bacon wrote on social media.
Mr. Kent’s post included a resignation letter addressed to Mr. Trump, in which he argued that Israeli officials drew the United States into the conflict with Iran.
In the letter, Mr. Kent wrote about what he saw as a “misinformation campaign” by high-ranking Israeli officials and the news media, which he said had undermined Mr. Trump’s “America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.”
A veteran of the Iraq war, Mr. Kent said that the arguments in support of attacking Iran, and promises of a swift victory, echoed the debate over going to war against Iraq in 2003.
Mr. Kent also referred to his late wife Shannon, a military cryptologist killed in Syria.
“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,” he wrote.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has long criticized Mr. Kent, accusing him of politicizing intelligence. In a statement on Tuesday, he said Mr. Kent’s record was troubling and that he should never have been confirmed. But Mr. Warner added that he agreed with him, at least in part, on the Iran war.
“On this point, he is right: there was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East,” Mr. Warner said.
As the varying responses to Mr. Kent’s resignation inside Republican circles showed, Mr. Kent has raised questions about how deep the war on Iran will crack the president’s Make America Great Again coalition, which has been positioned against wars of choice.
Vice President JD Vance, who has long criticized American interventions, has expressed some skepticism about the war, and Mr. Trump has said Mr. Vance was “less enthusiastic” about the mission than others in the administration.
Questioned in the Oval Office about his views on the war, Mr. Vance said Monday he would not allow the media to drive a “wedge” between him and the president.
Still, while polling shows Americans are deeply divided about the war, most Republicans have lined up in support of Mr. Trump’s actions.
As for his Republican critics, Mr. Trump declared that they are no longer part of the MAGA movement.
“THEY ARE NOT MAGA, I AM, and MAGA includes not allowing Iran, a Sick, Demented, and Violent Terrorist Regime, to have a Nuclear Weapon to blow up the United States of America, the Middle East and, ultimately, the rest of the World,” he wrote this weekend on Truth Social. “MAGA is about stopping them cold, and that is exactly what we are doing.”
Still, there is no question that Mr. Kent, despite his penchant for conspiracy theories and his deep skepticism of Israel, will be seen as a credible dissenter.
“Kent’s former experience as a seasoned combat veteran and with U.S. special operations and intelligence elements gave him a unique perspective on the risks and dangers associated with conflicts overseas,” Javed Ali, a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who now teaches at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, wrote in an email.
Mr. Kent has been a key adviser to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and has been advocating inside the administration for a more restrained foreign policy.
Ms. Gabbard is set to appear before the Senate on Wednesday and the House on Thursday for annual hearings on threats to the United States. And Mr. Kent’s resignation is likely to be a focus of various lawmakers questions.
Mr. Kent did not respond to a request for comment. He is a twice failed Congressional candidate in Washington State.
Mr. Kent is not the first official to publicly resign from the administration over the war. A lower-level Trump administration appointee, Sameerah Munshi, announced last week that she was resigning from the White House Religious Liberty Commission, citing the Iran War as a major factor.
She wrote on social media that most Americans opposed the U.S.-Israel campaign, and said that “our tax dollars are funding the very violence that we oppose, both against innocent Palestinians and now Iranians.” Ms. Munshi, a Muslim woman, added that she had seen firsthand the “injustice” carried out by members of the commission, some of whom she accused of mocking of her religion and treating her community “with hostility.”
Ms. Munshi said she was also resigning because the commission had revoked the membership last month of Carrie Prejean Boller, a Christian model accused by the chair of derailing a hearing on anti-Semitism.
Robert Jimison, Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong contributed reporting.
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.
The post Joe Kent, a Top U.S. Counterterrorism Official, Resigns Over the Iran War appeared first on New York Times.
