CIA Director Disputes Joe Kent: ‘Iran has Been a Constant Threat’ to U.S. for a Long Time
Trump didn’t start a war with Iran. He is ending a war with Iran that Iran started.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) brought up Joe Kent’s resignation letter while questioning CIA Director John Ratcliffe at a hearing about the Iran war.
“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 insisted.
Ratcliffe disputed Kent’s claim, pointing out that Iran started a war against America back in 1979:
CORNYN: John, yesterday, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned, saying that Iran did not represent an imminent threat to the United States. Is there any thing to indicate that Iran had ceased in its nuclear ambitions or in its desire to continue to build ballistic missiles capable of threatening American troops and allies in the Middle East?
RATCLIFFE: Senator, no. In fact, the intelligence reflects the contrary.
CORNYN: So you disagree with Mr. Kent.
RATCLIFFE: I do.
CORNYN: I would think any fair minded assessment of the situation, even based on open sources, would reflect the danger Iran poses, the regime poses, to the United States. Isn’t it true they’ve basically been at war with the West since 1979 during the Iranian Revolution, and have American blood on their hands?
RATCLIFFE: That’s absolutely correct. I think Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time.
⚠️ BREAKING: CIA Director Ratcliffe directly disputes the claim from ex-counterterrorism official Joe Kent that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. pic.twitter.com/2OCJA9Roq0
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) March 18, 2026
THANK YOU.
Do American lives only count on American soil? Do we not count when we leave America?
Trump didn’t start a war with Iran. He is ending a war with Iran that Iran started.
On March 2, the White House detailed every act of terrorism Iran committed against America and American citizens.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over Iran on February 11, 1979.
The first act of terrorism? November 1979, when Iranian students, backed by the regime, captured the U.S. Embassy. They took 66 Americans hostage, and the standoff lasted 444 days.
Iran and its proxy terrorist groups attacked America in Beirut, Lebanon, four times from April 1983 to September 1984.
In October 1983, “Hezbollah terrorists killed 241 U.S. military personnel — including 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel — in a truck bombing at a Marine compound in Beirut.”
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The more I ponder this despicable Kent fellow and his transparently self-serving, grandstanding, dishonest, narcissistic and vindictive resignation letter, the more I believe that he’s very likely received foreign bribes from either Iran and/or Qatar, and that he was/is totally ideologically and temperamentally unqualified to hold the position of Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
This guy’s wife was murdered by sadistic ISIS Islamofascist/terrorist thugs, and on the way out the door, he blames Israel for her death? That’s not only patently dishonest; it’s a psychotic shifting of blame that veers into mental illness and pathological Jew-hate.
The fact that this idiot is now appearing on Qatarlson’s wretched podcast, to join that greasy prostitute in a round of mutual rationalizations/whitewashing of Islamofascism and Muslim terrorism, and Israel-bashing, says all that we need to now about his cancerous ideology and subversive loyalties.
That
Follow the money…
Someone needs to put a bullet in Kent and Carlson’s craniums. They are sold out to the Muslims, same as Megan Kelly & Candace Owens. Megan Kelly attempting to argue foreign policy with Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro is hilarious. She is clueless. Trump crushed her in 2016, then she was back on his side, now she’s not. The Ozempic and Botox have eaten her cerebral cortex.
When journalists go Independent, what destroys them is not incompetence, but the lack of guard rails and anyone around they willing to warn them against going too far off the deep end of any subject.
Independent journalists tend to get advisors who are more interested in click-bait and shock value to attract an audience than good journalism. If someone says something interesting, they want to keep them talking and don’t ask the hard questions when their guests say some things a little but crazy.
That gives rise to complaints about their interviews “platforming” people and they don’t see that they set themselves up for such criticism!
Iran was not only allowed but promoted as a “counterweight” to bring “Zionist” Israel to the negotiation table for a “two state solution.” “Death to Israel” and “Death to American” were not negotiation ploys… those were end game plans. The Dems thought they could negotiate that which cannot be negotiated away. Giving money to Iran wasn’t going to soften them into a secular state… money is the only currency many in the West believe in. As long as the number of dead was a slow trickle somewhere else in the world…OK. Gays rights? Religion freedom? Human rights? Only issues for the West, in the West only. Burn down the USA for a petty thug in Minneapolis… sure…. 10s of thousands murdered elsewhere… “self-determination”.
Backing a “popular” dictator in a foreign country is acceptable as “self determination,” while electing a POTUS here is objectionable and deserves “resistance.”
And Israel was always on board with a 2-state solution given they accepted the original partion plan in the 1st place. It’s the Iranian thug theocracy that never accepted a 2-state solution, as they refuse to accept Jews living anywhere freely in the world. People forget that Iran recognized Israel as new country almost immediately and had free and open trade relations with them under their prior monarchy. It wasn’t until this gang of midevial zealots took over that they became genocidal towrds Jews. But of course Democrats don’t like history because then they have to admit that their party wanted to continue slavery in this country.
In fact, these terrorist theocrats in Iran refuse to accept all non-moslems living anywhere in the world. They are so much more than anti-Israel and anti-Semite.
That is very true.
” . . .they have to admit that their party wanted to continue slavery in this country. ”
See slavenorth.com about who else wanted to continue slavery in America.
Yankees -lots of them owned slaves who we’re not emancipated until passage of the 10th Amendment 10 months after Appomattox.
sure not all people in northern states were against slavery, that is true. However, what is also true is that most slave owners iwere Democrats. And Democrats were also the party of Jim Crow laws and the majority of KKK members. Does that mean that all democrats are evil, of course not. But it does mean that the party is highly connected to slavery and wanting to continue the hideous practice. Likely the majority of voters in this country don’t know that history, and Democrats probably like it that way.
Only a fool would take Kent’s word over Ratcliffe’s.
Kent is a grand standing fool.
Iran has been at war with us (and Israel) since their revolution. But it isn’t really just a war between states. It is an ideological and religious war, and will continue even if the Iranian regime is destroyed. Here is what concerns me – even if the regime goes down, their true believers will implement their ultimate doomsday contingency plan. The regime has been working at nuclear weapons for 30+ years. They must possess some nuclear weapons. Perhaps they don’t have weapons that can be reliably delivered by missiles, but they must have something. Yes, they are incompetent, but no country is that incompetent. They have something to use for a final revenge campaign after the regime goes down. I expect they will detonate smuggled warheads inside the USA, or perhaps use biological weapons, or both. The greatest danger to the USA is after the regime’s true believers have nothing left to lose.
First, they are not incompetent. (For one thing, they back-engineered the Phoenix missile so their F-14s would have something to throw.)
Second, although building an atomic device is relatively simple, it is not easy. And it’s very expensive (R&D wise). This is why nobody other than state actors have been able to build them.
Third, do you really believe that if Iran has atomic weapons that it would not yet have used them? (Or that the US and Israel haven’t already destroyed them?)
If they had a nuke that could be reliably delivered by missile they would have used it already. They probably have several nuclear devices of some kind, regardless of whether they purchased them or built them. But most of their missiles get shot down, so it is a big risk to use a missile to deliver such precious cargo. And yes, Israel may have already destroyed some of their nuclear arsenal. I assume they have only a few devices, which may not be reliably deliverable by their current missiles, so terrorism is their only effective means of delivery. And that kind of delivery takes time. They have to get it on cargo ships, shuffle it around the world, and eventually get it into the US. It is more of an intelligence operation than a military operation.
And as for bioterrorism, they don’t have to transport an agent anywhere. They can release a contagious agent in their own country with the knowledge that it will eventually spread everywhere. They have COVID-19 to thank for the example. If the regime goes down, I expect them to do this.
If they had a nuke they could drive in a truck they would have already used it. It’s not a missile bound nuke that scares me, since the odds are that it would be intercepted and destroyed. In fact the thing I fear most is a dirty bomb being used.
As said by Morgan Freeman in “The Sum of all Fears”; “It’s the guy with one [nuke] I’m worried about”.
If a nuclear missile was intercepted everyone would know about it. And if it went off in the sky it would still cause a lot of damage.
corny ..is he better than your other guy paxton???
I never liked corny and his sometime anti maga pov
Cornyn toes the line just enough to get reelected.
Cornyn is one of what I call the “Dinner Club” Republican, just like McConnell. They vote based on if it will affect their social schedule.
There are 3 parties in the US and the one represented most by our Politicians in Congress, is the Uniparty.
Joe Kent Previously Argued Iran Was Threat to the USA, Pushed for Wiping Out Nuclear, Missile Capabilities.
I am reminded of John Kerry.
Or of the quote attributed to Groucho Marx:
I well remember Iran’s capitulation to Reagan in 1981.
Keep it up. That is the only language they know.
From Scott Johnson at Powerline, a summary of an article from Tablet magazine’s The Scroll that details how Kent is likely an anti-Israeli nutter
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/03/how-kent-went.php
Johnson quotes Park MacDougald from The Scroll
It’s particularly notable that Kent says his first wife, Shannon, died in a war “manufactured by Israel.” Shannon Kent was killed in 2019 in Manbij, Syria, in a suicide bombing by the Islamic State—that is to say, as part of Trump’s first-term counter-ISIS mission, which Kent praised earlier in his letter as an example of Trump’s judicious use of military power. About the only people who claim that the counter-ISIS campaign was “manufactured by Israel” are those who buy the Kremlin-and-IRGC-confected narrative that it was cover for attempted “regime change” in Syria—which is obviously the crew that Kent is now running with.
I enjoy his observations and style of presentation, and we share the name Scott Johnson with pride!
Joe Kent—he’s no Clark Kent. The only thing super about him is: he’s a super loser.
“Faster than a piece of flying manure! More powerful than locoweed! Able to desert MAGA in a single bound!”
A nuclear armed Iran would have been catastrophic for the world.
Keeping Iran broke has a multiplicative effect on the safety of the world. They spend the most supporting terrorists, so when they are broke the lack of funds rolls down hill.
Legal Insurrection honchos, please explain why a comment I posted @ 1:45 p.m. does not appear until I log in again. It disappears when I log out, but reappears when I log in again.
Apparently Joe Kent has difficulty making up his mind. Or he has no difficulty in speaking out of both sides of his mouth
Joe Kent Previously Argued Iran Was Threat to the USA, Pushed for Wiping Out Nuclear, Missile Capabilities
Shades of John Kerry voting for the bill before he voted against it, or Groucho and his principles.
President Trump is doing what should have been done in Iran after the 2016 capture of our two vessels in the Persian Gulf.
As a combat veteran, a writer on military subjects and someone with knowledge of history and of Iran, I can state that Kent was right. Iran is not and never has been a threat to the United States. A threat to “US interests,” meaning US troops in the Middle East, yes. To the United States, no. Iran is a threat to Israel although it didn’t used to be. There is actually only one country that is a direct threat to the United States and that is Russia. They have a vast nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it. There are seven nations with nuclear weapons – and Israel, which has never admitted to having them. Only Russia has the means to deliver them over long distances. The problem in the Middle East is not Iran, it’s US meddling in a region where our sole interest is oil.
Sorry, a threat to American life is the definition of a threat to the United States, not some pesky thorn rubbing against American ‘interests’. You’re spouting nonsense. So what if our interest is oil – it’s also the interest of the countries freely selling it. Are we not allowed to engage in international commerce?
Do you think Pearl Harbor was a threat to the United States?
Oh, by the way. Joe Kent is a combat veteran. Donald Trump went to a military boys’ school.
Sam. I respect your service and your expertise. But there are plenty of others with equal, if not better, service and expertise (not including Donald Trump) who have opposite opinions and we must choose which to credit.
You are obviously an isolationist, and that is a respectable position. I, on the other hand, choose to live in a world where other nations share our values and wish to live in peace. Acting like a turtle and retreating into our shell when those values are threatened–even elsewhere–is ultimately the recipie for our extinction.
And a traitor.
General Benedict Arnold was a combat veteran and a hero, before he turned sour.
Think about that before you ask anyone to trust someone solely based on combat experience.
Was Joe Kent out of diapers in 1979?