Joe Kent, who recently resigned as head of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, set out his reasons in a letter to President Trump. He could not in good conscience, he claimed, any longer support a war against Iran that Israel, he insisted, had manipulated the United States into joining, by convincing Trump there was an “imminent” danger of Iran manufacturing nuclear weapons. The antisemitism was palpable: it was a version of old conspiracy theories about powerful Jews running the world; in past versions these consisted of cabals of Jewish bankers, or Jews who controlled the world media. For Joe Kent, it is the Jewish state that plays the role formerly assigned to “rich and powerful Jews” who controlled the world.
More on Joe Kent can be found here: “From Fatwa to Conspiracy: Joe Kent’s Iran Case Falls Apart,” by Micha Danzig, Algemeiner, March 23, 2026:
Joe Kent chose a revealing place to begin his claim that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States.
Sitting across from Tucker Carlson, Kent pointed to the Islamic Republic’s supposed “fatwa” against nuclear weapons — offering it as proof that Iran could be trusted to stop short of the bomb.
That argument collapses on contact with reality.
Setting aside that this so-called fatwa is unwritten and, by Iran’s own officials’ admission, not legally binding, no country builds deeply buried, hardened nuclear facilities under mountains — for civilian energy. No country enriches uranium to 60% for peaceful use. And once enrichment reaches that level, the remaining step to weapons-grade is short — measured at most in weeks, and in some scenarios just a few days. That is the baseline assessment across the nonproliferation community….
There is no evidence that Shiite Islamic scholars in Iran ever issued such a fatwa against nuclear weapons; had there been a spoken fatwa, it would not, being unwritten, be legally binding according to the laws of Islam.
And what further undermines that claim of an Iranian fatwa forbidding nuclear weapons is what the Islamic Republic actually did. It spent close to one hundred billion dollars on its nuclear program. It built uranium enrichment plants deep underground, at terrific expense, in Natanz, Fordow, and in Isfahan. The deepest one is the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, built deep within a mountain under an estimated 100 meters of rock and granite. It is designed to withstand heavy airstrikes, including bunker-buster bombs. But if, as Kent claims, Iran had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and had no interest in making them, then why go to all the trouble, and terrific expense, to build uranium enrichment facilities so deep underground? And why prevent the IAEA inspectors from visiting those sites, if nothing untoward was happening? If Iran was not enriching uranium to a purity of 60%, just one step below the weapons-grade level of 90%, what was there to hide? Why not have the entire nuclear program open to IAEA inspection, that would be able to confirm that uranium in Iran was being enriched only to a level of between 3% and 5%, the level needed for use in a conventional commercial nuclear reactor?
Before late February 2026, Iran fielded the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, and was expanding it. Missiles are relatively fast and inexpensive to produce. Interceptors are not. Systems like Arrow, David’s Sling, and Patriot require time, precision manufacturing, and far greater cost. Over time, the imbalance becomes structural….
Iran’s drones cost between $20,000 and $80,000 to make, and are often launched in salvos that require Israel to use a large number of interceptors. The total cost of a single Iron Dome interception, including operational expenses, can reach $150,000. If Iran sends a volley of twenty drones at Israel, costing a total of one million dollars, Israel might have to send up twenty interceptors, costing a total of three million dollars. Furthermore, Israel appears to be running out of interceptors of all kinds, and has just asked the Americans to re-supply its arsenal.
Any serious “America First” analysis would start there. Kent’s does not.
Instead, to argue the US is acting “for Israel,” he defaults to a familiar trope: that Israel “duped” the United States into the 2003 Iraq war.
This is not serious history. It is a recycled narrative common to both the antisemitic far-right and far-left, serving the same purpose: removing American agency and replacing it with manipulation by Israel or “the Jews.”
The record is clear.
Before 2003, Israeli leadership warned that Iran — not Iraq — posed the greater long-term threat. The intelligence cited by the Bush administration to support attacking Iraq came primarily from American and British sources. Colin Powell’s UN presentation relied on Western intelligence, not Israeli briefings.
Reducing that war to Israeli influence is not analysis. It is conspiracy theory….
The famed Israeli general Ariel Sharon, in 2002-2003 serving as Israel’s prime minister, warned the United States not to get involved in Iraq. Far from Israel pushing the U.S. into that war, Israel tried to stop it, with Sharon saying it was “the wrong war.” Sharon was not alone; most Israeli leaders thought the war against Iraq a waste of American resources and a potential Tar Baby, which is exactly what it turned out to be. For Israelis from Sharon and Netanyahu on down, Iran was always the enemy. Kent may not know this, or perhaps he has conveniently forgotten.
Keep accusing Israel of misleading and tricking the Americans, as Kent, Owens, Carlson, and other antisemitic conspiracy theorists do, and eventually, for too many, that charge will stick.
Kent’s description to Carlson of Ali Larijani as a moderate reflects a similar disregard for facts. Larijani spent decades at the center of the Islamic Republic — serving as nuclear negotiator, parliament speaker, and senior regime figure — in a system that imprisons, tortures, and mass-murders its own citizens. There is nothing moderate about that record.
Ali Larijani was no “moderate,” but the man in charge of the repression of protesters in January, including the murders of 36,500 unarmed protesters on January 8 and 9.
Kent also has nothing to say about another influence on American foreign policy — Saudi Arabia. For Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had for months before the war been urging Trump, behind the scenes, to attack Iran.
Kent knew he had for several months been under investigation as a “leaker” of classified information. He managed to get ahead of the investigation by resigning before its findings were made public, and presenting himself as a man of principle who was prepared to fall on his sword to expose the Israeli machinations in Washington. If he were then to be charged with leaking classified information, he could declare that “dark forces who don’t like my views are trying to destroy me.”
That is why Joe Kent’s false claim that Israel has been managing American policy in such a critical matter — war with Iran —could lead to further disenchantment by Americans with their government, seen by some as able to be duped by those sinister Israelis. And it will also lead to a rise in anti-Israel sentiment, already sky-high among the Democrats. That’s a result that would please not just Joe Kent, but his ideological pals, including Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Nihad Awad, and Rashida Tlaib.
