Joe Kent, a longtime Trump supporter and retired Green Beret who headed the National Counterterrorism Center, has resigned in protest over the ongoing U.S. war in Iran.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” Kent wrote on X on Tuesday. “It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Kent, who has worked in U.S. intelligence for decades, says the conflict is a repeat of past mistakes.
“This was a lie and is the same tactic Israel used to drag us into the catastrophic Iraq War, which cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again,” he added.
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In a letter addressed to Donald Trump, Kent explained that while he supports the values and foreign policy Trump ran on during his first term, he cannot back sending Americans “to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”
A decorated Army Special Forces veteran, Kent served 11 combat deployments over a 20-year military career and later worked with the CIA. His wife, Navy cryptologist Shannon Kent, was killed in a terrorist bombing in Syria in 2019.
Kent also accused the administration of being misled by foreign influence.
“We started this war on the pretense of an imminent threat, but Iran posed none. Pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby drove this decision,” he wrote.
The National Counterterrorism Center, which Kent oversaw, manages U.S. intelligence on terrorist threats and maintains a database of all known or suspected terrorists.
Kent’s resignation comes amid wider scrutiny over U.S. intelligence under Trump, including the firing of veteran analysts whose assessments clashed with White House claims. Kent himself had reportedly pushed analysts to adjust their reports to align with the administration’s narrative.
“Until June 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that cost America precious lives and drained our nation’s wealth and resources,” Kent wrote in his letter to Trump.
Joe Kent has submitted his resignation and will leave his post immediately, making a clear stand against the war in Iran and the influence of foreign lobbying on U.S. policy.
