Joe Kent, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on March 17, 2026, saying he "cannot in good conscience" back the Trump administration's 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," Kent said in an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, posted on X. #Iran #UnitedStates #JoeKent #Moment #CBCNews

This was really a remarkable letter that Joe Kent sent to the president, and then posted on social media announcing that he was resigning effective immediately as the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Because in his words, he cannot, in good conscience, support the ongoing war in Iran because the country posed no imminent threat to the U.S. saying that it's clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. He also claims that high ranking Israeli officials and influential media members here in the United States deployed a misinformation campaign that has undermined President Trump's America-first platform, saying that there -- that was used to deceive the president into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat, and that there was a clear path to a swift victory. Kent saying in this letter, this was a lie, and will lead the U.S. into another disastrous situation in the Middle East, like the war in Iraq. Kent himself is an Iraq war veteran. He was deployed. He says 11 times into combat. He lost his wife in a suicide bomb attack in Syria. She was also in the military. He was also a top aid to intelligence director Tulsi Gavid, and somebody that had supported Trump's idea to keep the United States out of foreign wars. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, just gave comments and was asked about this, and he really dug in on the idea that there was an imminent threat, saying that he had been briefed on this. He said that Iran was very close in its nuclear capability to enrich uranium. And of course, there was the strikes last June during that 12-day war, after which the president said that all of Iran's nuclear capabilities had been destroyed. Johnson also said that Iran was building missiles at a pace that no one in the region could keep pace with. So he believes that there was, in fact, an imminent threat here, but the person who has the intelligence, who has the confidential intelligence, saying that that is simply not true.