Washington (Somalia Today) – The United States’ top counterterrorism official resigned on Tuesday in protest at the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran, accusing Israel of running a “misinformation campaign” that pulled Washington into a devastating Middle East conflict.
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), is the highest-ranking Trump administration official to quit over the war.
His departure lays bare growing fissures within President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) coalition over foreign intervention.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote in a resignation letter addressed to Trump and posted on social media.
“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,” he added.
‘Manufactured war’
Kent, a former Green Beret who deployed to combat zones 11 times and later worked at the CIA, drew direct parallels between the current conflict and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
He accused senior Israeli officials and influential US media figures of misleading the president with promises of a swift victory.
The decorated veteran also invoked his late wife, Shannon Kent, a military cryptologist killed in Syria in 2019.
He said she died in a “war manufactured by Israel” and refused to support sending a new generation to fight in a conflict that “serves no benefit to the American people”.
Kent’s resignation comes as the US-Iran conflict, which erupted in late February, rapidly escalates across the region.
The war has already killed at least 1,300 people in Iran, more than 880 in Lebanon, and 12 in Israel, according to regional officials.
The US military says 13 American service members have been killed and about 200 wounded since the fighting began.
The conflict has severely disrupted global trade, with Iran targeting regional oil infrastructure and effectively closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The widening crisis has prompted Trump to ask global powers, including China, to deploy warships to help secure the vital maritime corridor.
Deepening MAGA divide
Kent, who won Senate confirmation to his post in July 2025 by a 52-44 vote, has long advocated a restrained foreign policy.
Before joining the administration, he ran two unsuccessful congressional campaigns in Washington state as an “America First” hardliner opposed to Middle East wars.
He is a close ally of conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, who has emerged as a sharp critic of the current military campaign.
Carlson praised the resignation in a brief interview, calling Kent “the bravest man I know” and warning that “neocons will now try to destroy him”.
However, Kent’s accusations against Israel drew fierce backlash from some Republicans.
Representative Don Bacon, a former Air Force brigadier general, posted “good riddance” on social media.
“Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government,” Bacon wrote.
But Kent’s stance found unlikely validation across the political aisle.
Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has often criticised Kent for a penchant for conspiracy theories, including baseless claims about the January 6 Capitol attack, and for politicising intelligence.
Yet Warner agreed with Kent’s assessment of Tehran’s capabilities on Tuesday.
“There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East,” Warner said in a statement.
Trump pushes back
The war has opened an ideological split among Trump’s supporters, many of whom backed his earlier promises to avoid foreign entanglements.
Vice President JD Vance, a vocal sceptic of American interventionism, has expressed some reservations about the war.
Trump previously said Vance was “less enthusiastic” about the mission than others in the administration.
However, Vance told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that he would not allow the media to drive a “wedge” between him and the president.
Trump himself forcefully defended the military campaign over the weekend.
On his Truth Social platform, the president declared that Republican critics of the war “ARE NOT MAGA”.
“MAGA includes not allowing Iran, a Sick, Demented, and Violent Terrorist Regime, to have a Nuclear Weapon to blow up the United States, the Middle East, and, ultimately, the rest of the World,” Trump wrote.
“MAGA is about stopping them cold, and that is exactly what we are doing.”
Dissent within the ranks
Despite the political pushback, analysts say Kent’s extensive military background makes his dissent difficult for the administration to brush aside.
Javed Ali, a former senior US counterterrorism official, said Kent’s combat and intelligence experience gives him “a unique perspective on the risks and dangers associated with conflicts overseas”.
Kent served as a key adviser to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, another senior official known for her military service and opposition to drawn-out wars.
Gabbard is due to testify before the Senate on Wednesday and the House on Thursday during annual hearings on national security threats.
Lawmakers are expected to focus heavily on Kent’s resignation during the sessions.
Kent is not the first official to walk away over the Iran offensive.
Last week, Sameerah Munshi resigned from the White House Religious Liberty Commission, citing the war as a major factor.
She said American tax dollars were funding violence “against innocent Palestinians and now Iranians”.
Munshi, a Muslim woman, added that she had witnessed “injustice” from commission members who mocked her religion and treated her community “with hostility”.
She also protested the commission’s decision last month to revoke the membership of Carrie Prejean Boller, a Christian model accused by the chair of derailing a hearing on anti-Semitism.
