“No imminent threat”: opposed to the war in Iran, a senior American counterterrorism official resigns

A voice raised against the American offensive in the Middle East. A top U.S. counterterrorism official announced his resignation Tuesday in protest over the war against Iran, saying the Islamic Republic “poses no imminent threat” to the United States.

Joseph Kent, a former special forces soldier, is the first senior official to resign from the Trump administration to express his disagreement with the war.

“I cannot in good conscience support the war currently taking place in Iran,” Joseph Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in his resignation letter to President Donald Trump, which he shared on X.

A “disinformation campaign”

“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war under pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he continued.

In his letter, Joseph Kent accuses “senior Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” of having led a “disinformation campaign” that fueled a “warmongering climate favorable to war against Iran.”

“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that if you struck now, the path to rapid victory was clear,” he continued.

“It was a lie and it is the same tactic that the Israelis used to drag us into the disastrous war in Iraq that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women,” said Joseph Kent.

At the end of February, Donald Trump affirmed that the strikes by the United States and Israel were necessary to eliminate “imminent threats” from Tehran. A few days later, he changed his speech, maintaining vagueness about American motivations, and claiming to have seized the “last and best opportunity” to strike Iran.