Right, for the wrong reasons
Joe Kent, anti-Semitism, and the Trump administration's purge of U.S. counterterrorism personnel.
Meet Joe Kent.
Until Tuesday, Kent might have escaped the attention of those of you who live balanced lives and don’t obsess over the dystopian dysfunction of the Trump administration (I envy you, by the way). He served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a relatively obscure but important national security agency that collects and analyzes intelligence on terrorist threats.
Kent burst onto homepages and front pages when he announced Tuesday — via X, of course — that he was resigning his post, effective immediately.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war with Iran,” he wrote. “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.”
In the resignation letter, addressed to Trump, Kent recounted his military record — he said he was deployed 11 times — and the death of his wife, Shannon, a Navy linguist assigned to a cryptologic unit working in Syria. A suicide bomber killed Shannon and three other Americans in 2019.1
No one can — or should — denigrate Kent’s service and sacrifice. The conclusions he has drawn about who is responsible for the mess in Iran and his experiences in the Middle East are another matter.
“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israelis 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,” Kent wrote. “This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that you should strike now, there was a clear path to victory.
“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,” he continued. “We cannot make this mistake again.”
Kent is right to object to the war with Iran, although he is incorrect in saying that the Islamic Republic — a sponsor of global terror and an aspiring nuclear power — posed no threat to the United States. But that is, at best, a mistake in judgment.
More disturbing is who he blames for the two most serious U.S. foreign policy blunders of the 21st century.
The responsibility for the wars in Iraq and Iran belongs to former president George W. Bush and Trump, not some supposedly nefarious Jewish cabal. Kent’s letter echoes what Yair Rosenberg of The Atlantic calls “the long tradition of conspiratorial anti-Semitism, which blames groups of Jews for being behind the world’s problems.”2
Kent’s thinking suggests that rank-and-file Trump loyalists may turn on the American Jewish community if, as looks increasingly likely, the war in Iran drags on without resolution. Since Trump can’t be responsible for the looming disaster in Iran, Kent implies, it must be the fault of the Jews.
While the Kent kerfuffle highlights the anti-Semitism that permeates the MAGA movement, it also calls attention to what could become a dangerous government weakness as the war continues.
During his confirmation hearing, according to the Associated Press, Kent declined to repudiate past statements denying the validity of Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020 and his assertions that federal agents somehow instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.3
In other words, Kent got the job because he appeared to be a Trump loyalist who parroted every spurious claim about Biden’s victory and the subsequent riot aimed at disrupting the peaceful transfer of power. That he has resigned from a position for which he possessed no qualifications should be a source of comfort. But it isn’t.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has systemically weakened law enforcement missions aimed at countering terrorist threats. According to Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, the rising threat of terrorist incidents on U.S. soil, highlighted by three recent violent events, comes as the FBI and Justice Department have purged “experienced national security professionals.”4
With veteran counter-terror experts gone, we are reduced to trusting that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and FBI Director Kash Patel can keep America safe. That is not a comforting thought.
John Ismay, “In His Resignation Letter, Joe Kent Spoke About the Death of His Wife,” New York Times, March 17, 2026 [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/us/politics/joe-kent-shannon-kent-iran-syria.html]
Yair Rosenberg, “The Dangerous Logic of the Joe Kent Letter,” The Atlantic Daily, March 17, 2026 [https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2026/03/joe-kent-resignation-iran-trump/686434/]
Bill Barrow, “What to know about the resignation of Joe Kent as Trump’s counterterrorism chief,” Associated Press [apnews.com/article/joe-kent-resignation-iran-donald-trump-6d87b1f4852913d7d55ff1f195d7fc87]
Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, “US faces elevated terrorism threats against backdrop of Iran war and cuts at FBI, Justice Department,” Associated Press [/apnews.com/article/fbi-iran-terrorism-firings-18d59b0c72ca52db09c8ff03215efe14]
No, not comforting at all.