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“After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as director of the National Counterrorism Center,” Joe Kent announced on Tuesday. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran” which “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.”
For all but the willfully blind, Iran’s Islamic regime does pose an imminent threat to the USA. Even so, Kent’s departure is no cause for concern because the National Counterterrorism Center he headed does not counter terrorism in any meaningful way.
The NCTC was the creation of President George W. Bush, who after 9/11 told the nation that “Islam is peace.” In the aftermath, Bush created the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) whose first director was CIA officer John Brennan. He believed that Islamic jihad was a moral quest for truth that had nothing to do with violence.
A voter for the Stalinist Gus Hall in 1976, Brennan served as President Clinton’s daily intelligence briefer. In 2003, Brennan led a multi-agency effort to establish the National Counterterrorism Center and served as the NCTC’s first director. Brennan left the CIA in 2005 and in 2013 the composite character president, formerly known as Barry Soetoro, tapped him to head the CIA, which failed to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attack.
In similar style, the NCTC failed to prevent terrorist attacks at Fort Hood (2009), the Boston Marathon (2013), San Bernardino (2015) and Orlando in 2016, all with massive loss of life. To be fair, the CIA and FBI also failed to prevent those attacks, and played no role in the takedown of the terrorists.
Joe Kent served in the US Army for 20 years, completing 11 combat deployments in the Middle East and other regions. After retirement Kent moved on to the CIA, where he served as a paramilitary officer in the CIA’s Special Activities Center. Joe Kent twice ran for Congress in Washington State, losing in 2022 and 2024 to Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
In 2025, President Trump tapped Kent to head the NCTC. Sen. Patty Murray claimed Kent was “patently unqualified” for the job and “a conspiracy theorist who espouses white supremacist views.” Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard said:
Under Joe’s leadership, the National Counterterrorism Center will reinvigorate its focus on counterterrorism and counternarcotics, integrating Federal, State and Local law enforcement and intelligence agencies to carry out President Trump’s border security mandate and ensure the safety, security and freedom of the American people. I am proud to welcome soldier, father, husband, patriot Joe Kent to our leadership team.
Last September, NCTC director Joe Kent said:
The relentless pursuit of our enemies means clearly defining and understanding them. Constant vigilance includes guarding our borders and ensuring our communities are informed. We have the knowledge and leadership to keep America safe. That said, it is critical for first responders and the public to stay alert and vigilant against threats from Al-Qa‘ida’s global network. While a number of threats persist, NCTC and our partners are monitoring 24/7 to thwart these attacks and keep Americans safe.
The retreating Kent now sounds more like a politician. “High-ranking Israeli officials” and members of the media had deployed a “misinformation campaign,” to “deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was an clear path to swift victory.” And so on.
Kent’s wife Shannon, serving in the US Navy, was killed by a suicide bomb in Syria in 2019. Kent now claims that he lost his wife “in a war manufactured by Israel.” So the notion that Israel pulls America’s strings is not new for the CIA alum.
President Trump said it was a “good thing” that Kent resignedbecause he thought “Iran was not a threat” and was “very weak on security.” Kent’s colleagues in the CIA should take his resignation as an example.
Former CIA analyst John Gentry authored Neutering the CIA: Why US Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences. As the author explains, “the politicization of intelligence was aimed at Trump,” and “the political culture of some IC agencies remains intact, available for reactivation in the event of another serious candidacy by Trump or the election of another Republican president.”
No word of any resignations from this partisan sleeper cell now awaiting reactivation. They need to be identified and prosecuted, before they do more harm to the nation. That especially applies during a conflict with a terrorist Islamic regime that has been chanting “death to America” for nearly 50 years.
“Every country realized what a threat Iran was,” said Trump in his response to the Kent resignation. “The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.”
