Joe Kent said Tuesday that he is stepping down as director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), stating that he can no longer support what he described as the U.S. push into conflict with Iran. He announced the decision in a post on X and released a resignation letter addressed to President Donald Trump.
He wrote, “After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.”
In the post, he wrote, “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.”
His letter struck a far sharper tone. Kent said he could not stay in the job while backing the administration’s current policy on Iran. He argued that the conflict should not have begun and said the United States had been driven toward war by outside pressure.
He also accused senior Israeli officials and members of the American media of fueling support for military action through what he called a misinformation campaign. In the letter, Kent said that effort had pulled Trump away from the foreign policy approach he once ran on.
Kent tied the resignation to his own life as much as to policy. He described himself as a veteran with 11 combat deployments and a Gold Star husband whose wife, Shannon, was killed in the fight against ISIS. He wrote that he could not support sending younger Americans into another war that, in his view, offered no clear benefit to the country.
Trump had spoken warmly about Kent when announcing his nomination in February. In a Truth Social post at the time, Trump called him a soldier, Green Beret, and CIA officer and said he would help protect the United States by fighting terrorism.
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