Joe Kent resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center today over President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote on X. “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:
I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.In your first administration, you understood better than any moderdn President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS.
This part caused my jaw to drop wide open:
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. 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. 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.
Well, I read his statement. I always thought it was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn’t know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy, but when I read a statement, I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said that Iran was not a threat.Iran was a threat — every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. And many people, many of the greatest military scholars are saying for years that presidents should have taken out Iran because they wanted a nuclear weapon. They were — if we didn’t do the attack or if I’ll go a step further, if I didn’t terminate the Iran nuclear deal given to us, one of the worst deals ever made by Barack Hussein Obama. Remember when they sent Boeing 757 over there loaded with cash, hundreds of millions of dollars? You would have been very happy. This was a wonderful — they sent hundreds of million — people forget that. Does anybody remember, right? You remember! Hundreds of millions of dollars in a Boeing 757. I think they had two of them loaded. They took the seats out and they put cash. And it was so much that there wasn’t a bank in Virginia, Maryland, or DC that had any money left. They stripped them of all their money, put it into planes, sent it to Iran almost as ransom. That’s not going to happen with Trump. And nobody ever did anything about it. Nobody ever said anything. Can you imagine if I did that?So, they’ve been a threat for a long time, but they’ve really been a threat. If — if I didn’t terminate Obama’s horrible deal that he made, the Iran nuclear deal, you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have had — you would have had nuclear holocaust, and you would have had it again if we didn’t bomb the site.So, when somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran was a threat, we don’t want those people because — and there are some people, I guess, that would say that, but they’re not smart people or they’re not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat. And virtually every NATO nation — and this is the thing, if they told me it wasn’t a threat and therefore they don’t want to help, but when they say it was a threat and it was a major threat — every one of them — I think every one of them — I don’t know of one that said they’re not a threat, but when they say it was a threat, but we’re not going to help, I think they’re very foolish. You know, it’s interesting. It’s interesting because I could say this, that what’s happening in Ukraine, we’re probably in there for $400 billion. We don’t spend any money anymore. They buy it from us and they pay full price. But Biden gave them between 350 and $400 billion of equipment and cash. Someday, they’ll have to find out about the cash, and you could say that wasn’t a threat. You know, we’re helping them, so we helped them and they didn’t help us. And I think that’s a very bad thing for NATO.
Let’s go back to what Kent wrote in his letter. I am flabbergasted.
I guess we will see Kent on shows hosted by Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly.
I never heard that Israel pressured the U.S. to invade Iraq in the 90s or in 2003.
Iran started this war in 1979. The regime has literal American blood on its hands.
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.”
Let’s not forget that Iran is the top sponsor of global terrorism.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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