Top US counterterrorism chief quits Trump’s govt over Iran war

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

The director of the United States’ National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, has resigned from his position in a blistering public letter, declaring that he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.”

He accused Israel of pressuring the Trump administration into a conflict that serves no American interest.

Kent, a 45-year-old former US Special Forces and CIA veteran whose wife was killed in a 2019 suicide bombing in Syria, announced his resignation on social media Tuesday, making him the most high-profile figure within the Trump administration to publicly break with the president over the three-week-old military campaign against Iran .

In his resignation letter addressed to President Donald Trump, Kent stated unequivocally that “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’s letter drew repeatedly on his personal sacrifice and decades of military service. He reminded Trump that he had supported the president’s “America First” foreign policy platform through three election cycles and into his first term .

“Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation,” Kent wrote.

But according to Kent, that understanding was undermined by external forces. He alleged that “high-ranking Israeli officials” and influential American journalists had deployed a “misinformation campaign” that exaggerated the Iranian threat and ultimately deceived the president into abandoning his anti-war principles.

“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,” Kent’s letter continued.

“This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war.”

The emotional core of Kent’s resignation lay in his reference to his late wife, Navy cryptologic technician Shannon Kent, who was killed in Syria in 2019.

“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.

Kent’s resignation comes as the human cost of the Iran conflict becomes increasingly apparent.

According to Pentagon figures cited in multiple reports, at least 13 American service members have been killed since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28. A further ten have been seriously wounded, with approximately 200 injured overall.

The Wall Street Journal reported the casualty figures on Friday, painting a stark picture of a conflict that Kent argues was unnecessary.