March 17, 2026
Rats Fleeing the Ship of State
Timothy Birdnow
Kent is dishonest.
Here is the text of his letter to Trump:
President Trump, After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. 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.
I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation. In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS. Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials 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. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift 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. We cannot make this mistake again. As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards. It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.
Joseph KentDirector, National Counterterrorism Center
First, Iran tried to assassinate President Trump which is in fact an act of war. That alone justifies our attack on the rogue terrorist state.
Second they have always been at war with us ands in fact DID pose an immanent threat to us as they were attacking our interests around the region and it was pretty clear they planned to attack us in our homeland. Why were so many illegal aliens coming here from Iran?
And they themselves said they had 11 nuclear weapons or at least enough enriched uranium for 11 devices anyway and they refused to negotiate to end their nuclear program. I would say that makes for a fairly immanent threat.
Oh I know; people will say "they were just lying to make themselves look tough" and maybe they were, but could the President really risk that?
Some boasts have to be taken seriously.
Third, Kent can't possibly believe Trump can be pressured into doing something he knows is wrong. Trump is the one man who makes up his own mind. Nobody forces that guy's hand. There is no way Trump would be convinced or tricked by Netanyahu or the Jewish lobby in America. It was a politically dangerous gamble in the first place and Trump is not a fool.
He says:
"In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS."
So how is this qualitatively any different than those actions? Trump's attacks on Iran do not feature a single American on the ground inside Iran. It is the exact same principle being applies, just on a larger scale. If Kent thought it a good way to handle affairs then why does he complain now?
Finally, do notice the anti-semitism being displayed by Kent in claiming the Israelis aka Jews tricked Bush into going into Iraq and that they and the media tricked Trump for the same reasons. This is just absurd; Bush wanted to go into Iraq to clean up the mess his father left, who went into Iraq to liberate Kuwait, which Iraq had illegally invaded. Say what you will but it had nothing to do with Israel. Israel did their own dirty work, destroying Saddam Hussein's nuclear program, for instance. They didn't need us and they didn't ask us to invade. That decision was entirely George W. Bush's and this decision is entirely Donald J. Trump's. And Trump is right; we could not afford to kick this can down the road any further.
Kent is the one using media talking points here, not Donald Trump, not Pete Hegseth, and not anyone in the Administration.
Had Kent come to the President and tendered his resignation quietly I would perhaps give him credit, but he did this quite publicly to embarrass the President and his Administration and give fodder to the mecia and the Democrats. We've seen this sort of behavior before, during the first Trump Administration when fair-weather friends suddenly jumped ship because they thought the political winds were shifting and they wanted to be on the winning side. I fear that is what Kent is doing here. Going public in this fashion was guaranteed to buy him good press and invitations on the Sunday news talk shows.
He is setting himself up for a political run, or at least a job at CNN.
I would add the U.S. has invaded other countries for less. Remember te peacekeepers in Somalia? The Iranian regime murdered 40,000 of it's own citizens - a horrible massacre by any standard. The people are ready to revolt and are a. fearful of being killed by the Mullahs and b. were told by President Trump to stay home and avoid the bombing. Fear of the Mullahs will wane as most of the Mullahs are now room temperature, and when the bombing ends the People may well rise up. This is as humane a war as we've ever encountered. clearly meeting Augustine's definition of a just war.
Kent knows all this, and if not he should never have been in the position he was in. Sometimes you have no choice but fight a war, and sometimes it is quite prudent to not wait until you lose, say, ten million citizens when Iran nuked New York City (although we'd at least have gotten rid of Momdani).
I for one am glad this guy has left the Administration.
I get it; we don't want to keep fighting endless wars. I don't and am on record opposing any involvement in Ukraine, for instance. But these guys regularly chant "death to America" and have been attacking us and our interests since 1979. At some point you have to fight. In the Islamic world someone who just overlooks being attacked is a coward and that only invites more attacks. I have little doubt many in the Middle East hold us in complete contempt because we won't fight - and we think we can "win hearts an minds" by building schools and hospitals. We see that as benevolence - they see it as cravenness. They see that as our trying to buy them off.
That is what Obama tried. That is what Bush tried. That is what the autopen tried. It doesn't work.
There is no way to deal with a bully but beat him senseless. Iran was and remains a bully. If Kent knew anything about a schoolyard or a battlefield he would know that.
This tweet says it all:
Cynical Publius
@CynicalPublius
So the head of the "National Counterterrorism Center" is mad because we've taken out the direct sponsor of most of global terrorism over the past 50 years?
Make it make sense.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:25 AM
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