Counter-terrorism chief resigns in protest over Iran war

David Smith in Washington

The Guardian: 19 March 2026

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/19/fbi-probing-counterterrorism-official-who-resigned-over-iran-war-reports-say

Joe Kent, director of the US national counter-terrorism center and a staunch Trump ally has become the first US official to step down from his post due to the US joining Israel’s war on Iran.

Predictably, he is now being investigated by the FBI. We can wonder if Trumped-up charges will follow.

Kent insisted that there was no evidence that Iran was close to gaining a nuclear weapon or posed an imminent threat to the US.

“There was no intelligence that said, ‘Hey, on whatever day it was, March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack – they’re going to do some kind of a 9/11, Pearl Harbor, et cetera, they are going to attack one of our bases.’ There was none of that intelligence.”

Instead, Kent alleged, Trump’s hand was effectively forced by Israel. “The Israelis drove the decision to take this action,” he said, claiming that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials lobbied the president with claims that did not align with established intelligence channels.

Kent added: “I know how this works. I know the Israeli officials - some in intelligence, some in government – will come to US government officials and they will say all kinds of things that we know from our intelligence just simply isn’t true.

They’ll say, hey, I’m giving you a preview, it’s not in intelligence channels yet, but here’s what’s gonna happen, and that doesn’t usually come to fruition.”

Such remarks have drawn swift condemnation in some quarters, with critics arguing that references to an “Israeli lobby” veer into offensive tropes.