.jpeg?trim=0,0,399,0&width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800 "Trump’s former counterterrorism chief Joe Kent blames Israel for war with Iran and claims Tehran was not on verge of having nukes – UK Times")
President Donald Trump’s former counterterrorism chief Joe Kent has blamed Israel for the war in Iran and stated that Tehran was not on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.
“The Israelis drove the decision to take this action, which we knew would set off a series of events, meaning the Iranians would retaliate,” Kent, who resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday, told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday.
“The Israelis felt emboldened…that they could go ahead and take this action and we would just have to react,” he said.
He added that the Iranian regime has had a fatwa — or edict — in place since 2004 that bars them from developing a nuclear weapon. “We had no intelligence to indicate that fatwa was being disobeyed,” he told Carlson.
Kent resigned from the administration over his opposition to “the ongoing war in Iran” in a post on X that quickly went viral, drawing more than 93 million views.
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“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” Kent said. “And it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Kent, an Oregon native who spent 20 years in the U.S. Army, said he supported the policies the president campaigned on but now feels Trump was duped into backing a “disastrous” decision that echoes the Iraq war.
“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,” he added.
His departure — which made him the highest‑ranking official to step down over the war in Iran — reportedly caught Trump’s advisers off guard. But it was swiftly dismissed as inconsequential by the White House.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters that after reading the letter he “realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out.” The next day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the episode “laughable” and “insulting” and moved to downplay Kent’s significance.
“It’s been a while since the president has seen him here at the White House,” she said. “This was an individual who was not involved in any of the discussions pre-operation and throughout this operation.”
At an event in Michigan on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance told supporters that he knows and likes Kent. But, he said policy disagreements should be set aside once the president has decided on a course of action.
Some in MAGA world, though, have expressed fervent support for Kent.
Former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — who has staunchly opposed the Iran war — characterized him as a “GREAT AMERICAN HERO.”
Kent’s resignation comes as the war in Iran — launched jointly by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 — has now stretched into its third week. The conflict has engulfed the broader Middle East region, with strikes reported in Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
At least 1,200 Iranian civilians have died, and more than 10,000 have been injured, according to the country’s health officials. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, and more than 140 have been wounded, the Pentagon has said.
The war — which shows no signs of abating — has also sparked fears of global economic upheaval, as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a halt, pushing oil prices above the $100‑a‑barrel mark several times in recent weeks.
Recent polls indicate that more Americans oppose the conflict in Iran than support it.
Fifty-three percent of voters are against the U.S. military action against the Middle East nation, while 40 percent support it, according to a Quinnipiac survey released on March 9.
