Senior US counterterrorism official resigns to protest Iran war

WASHINGTON

The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford departs Souda Bay on the island of Crete on Feb. 26, 2026. (AFP)

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official resigned on March 17 to protest the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and said the Islamic Republic posed no imminent threat to the U.S.

"I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran," Joseph Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), said in his resignation letter to President Donald Trump.

Kent, a former member of the Green Beret special forces who served multiple combat tours, said "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."

Kent, 45, who was appointed to head the NCTC by Trump, is the first senior U.S. official to resign from his administration to protest the war against Iran.

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."

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.

Kent's wife, Shannon, also served in the U.S. military and was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.