Top US counterterrorism official resigns over Trump’s Iran war

The director of the National Counterterrorism Centre in the US has announced his resignation, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war.

“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,” Joe Kent said in a statement posted on social media on Tuesday, making claims President Donald Trump has denied.

Mr Kent, a former political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists, was confirmed to his post last July on a 52-44 vote.

As head of the National Counterterrorism Centre, he was in charge of an agency tasked with analysing and detecting terrorist threats.

His resignation reflects unease within Trump’s base about the war and shows that questions about the justification for the use of force in Iran extend to at least one senior member of Trump’s Republican administration.

The change in personnel at one of the nation’s top counterterrorism offices comes amid heightened concerns about terrorism in the homeland following attacks within the past week at a Michigan synagogue and a Virginia university.

Mr Kent’s decision to resign came down to the reasoning behind the strikes on Iran, or what he said was the lack thereof, he wrote in his resignation letter.

Mr Trump has offered shifting reasons for the strikes and has pushed back on claims that Israel forced the US to act.

Earlier this month, speaker Mike Johnson suggested that the White House believed Israel was determined to act on its own, leaving the Republican president with a “very difficult decision”.

In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr Trump said that he always thought Mr Kent was “weak on security” and that if someone in his administration did not believe Iran was a threat, “we don’t want those people”.

“They’re not smart people, or they’re not savvy people,” Mr Trump said.

“Iran was a tremendous threat.”

A spokesperson for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not immediately respond to questions about Mr Kent’s resignation.

Democrats strongly opposed Mr Kent’s confirmation, pointing to his past ties to far-right figures and conspiracy theories.

But following Mr Kent’s resignation, senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Mr Kent’s concerns about the war in Iran were justified.

“I strongly disagree with many of the positions he has espoused over the years, particularly those that risk politicising our intelligence community.

“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.”

Mr Johnson, though, pushed back on Mr Kent’s claims that Iran posed no imminent threat when asked about the resignation at a press conference on Tuesday.

“I got all the briefings. We all understood that there was clearly an imminent threat that Iran was very close to the enrichment of nuclear capability and they were building missiles at a pace no one in the region could keep up with,” Mr Johnson said.

He said he is convinced that if Mr Trump had waited “we would have mass casualties of Americans, service members and others, and our installation would have been dramatically damaged”.

Mr Kent is leaving the Trump administration as three recent acts of violence have raised concerns about threats to the homeland.

Ms Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe and FBI director Kash Patel are scheduled to give evidence before legislators later this week about threats facing the US, an annual hearing that this year is likely to be taken up by questions about the Iran war and in particular the revelation that outdated intelligence likely led to the US firing a missile that hit an elementary school in Iran and killed more than 165 people.

A veteran and former congresswoman from Hawaii, Ms Gabbard has in the past criticised talk of military strikes in Iran.

Six years ago she said that “an all out war with Iran would make the wars that we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic.

“It will be far more costly in lives, American lives, and American taxpayer dollars — and all towards accomplishing what goal? What objective?”

Ms Gabbard’s office did not respond when asked if Gabbard supported the strikes, and she has not posted about Iran on her social media accounts since the strikes began last month.