The director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center resigned on Tuesday in protest against the Iran war and blamed Israel for dragging America into decades of conflict.
Joe Kent, a former U.S. Army Ranger who served 11 combat tours and whose previous wife was killed in the line of duty in Syria in 2019, wrote in his resignation letter to U.S. President Donald Trump that Iran “posed no imminent threat” to the United States.
“It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote. “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 blamed “high-ranking Israeli officials” and “influential members of the American media” for creating a “misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.”
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory,” Kent wrote. “This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”
ISIS killed Kent’s then-wife, Shannon, in a suicide bomb attack in Manbij, Syria, where she was deployed with the U.S. Navy as part of counter-ISIS operations and to support Syrian Kurdish forces. He described that conflict as also being “a war manufactured by Israel.”
Ilan Goldberg, senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street, wrote that while he would normally welcome the resignation of an official over a war he disagreed with, Kent’s blaming of Jews for repeatedly taking America into conflicts was unacceptable.
“The antisemitic stuff in here blaming Israel for the Iraq war and a secret conspiracy of the media and Israelis to deceive Trump into going to war with Iran is ugly stuff that plays on the worst antisemitic tropes,” Goldberg said. “Donald Trump is the president of the United States and he is the one ultimately responsible for sending American troops into harm’s way.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) wrote that the letter from Kent, the most senior Trump administration official to resign over the war in Iran, was proof that he should never have been in office.
“Good riddance,” Bacon said. “Antisemitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government.”
Before joining the administration Kent previously ran for Congress in Washington state in 2022 and 2024 as a Republican, before he became chief of staff to Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence. The Senate confirmed him as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in July.
Democrats at the time accused him of being an “unqualified conspiracy theorist” on the basis of his congressional campaigns.
“Joe Kent also has a track record of peddling conspiracies and attacking law enforcement, from saying our country is at war with ‘leftist cabal,’ or calling to completely defund the FBI and ATF, agencies that keep Americans safe from foreign and domestic threats, or pushing the offensive and false conspiracy that the Jan. 6 insurrection was somehow a deep state plot,” stated Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
“There is no place in public service for traffickers of antisemitic tropes such as Mr. Kent,” Arie Lipnick, chair of the U.S. advisory board of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told JNS. “For generations to come, the world will be a safer place as a direct result of the decisive military actions that have been taken by the United States and Israel.”
Prominent anti-Israel conspiracy theorists welcomed Kent’s letter on Tuesday.
“May American troops take his lead and look into conscientious objection to Bibi’s red heifer war,” wrote Candace Owens. “Goyim stand down.”
