US counter-terrorism chief appointed by Trump resigns over war in Iran

LAST UPDATE | 12 hrs ago

A SENIOR US counter-terrorism official has resigned in protest against the war against Iran, saying that the Islamic Republic posed no imminent threat to the United States.

Joseph Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, said in his resignation letter to President Donald Trump that he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran”. 

Kent – a former member of the Green Beret special forces who served multiple combat tours – also claimed that the US started the war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

He is the first senior US official to resign from the Trump administration to protest the war against Iran.

He previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice as a Republican aligned with Trump, during which he was linked to figures in the American far-right movement.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, accused Kent of being “very weak on security” and said it’s a “good thing that he’s out”.

Kent’s wife, Shannon, also served in the US military and was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.

“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 nor justifies the cost of American lives,” he 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 said in his letter to Trump.

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“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” he said.

“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,” he said.

“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,” Kent said.

“I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives,” he added.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against what she called “false claims” in Kent’s resignation letter, calling “insulting and laughable” the suggestion that the decision to go to war was made “based on the influence of others.”

“As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first,” Leavitt said.

“President Trump ultimately made the determination that a joint attack with Israel would greatly reduce the risk to American lives that would come from a first strike by the terrorist Iranian regime and address this imminent threat to America’s national security interests,” she said.

US Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Kent’s “record is deeply troubling”.

“But on this point, he is right: 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.

 - © AFP 2026 with reporting from Stephen McDermott.