Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned Tuesday in protest over President Donald Trump's war with Iran, becoming the first senior administration official to break with the White House over the conflict publicly. He alleged that Israel pressured the Trump administration into entering the war.
In a resignation letter posted online and reported by multiple outlets, Kent said Iran posed "no imminent threat" to the United States and argued the administration had entered a war that did not meet the threshold of immediate national self-defense. Kent wrote, "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. 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."
