Trump administration’s former National Counterterrorism Center (NCC) Director Joe Kent asserted in a post on X on Thursday that the US intelligence community agreed before the war that “Iran wasn’t developing a nuclear weapon.”
Kent added, “The narrative & agenda spun by a foreign government- Israel, won the argument & forced us into this war.”
The US and Israel launched an unprovoked war on Iran on February 28, 2026, under the pretext that Tehran was developing a nuclear weapon.
“One of the many tragedies of this war is that before the war began the US Intel Community, including CIA, was in agreement that Iran wasn’t developing a nuclear weapon & that Iran would target US bases in the region & shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they were attacked by Israel & the US,” Kent wrote in the post.
“The IC also properly assessed that targeting the Iranian leadership would strengthen the regime and embolden the hardliners. Despite the professionalism & accuracy of the IC, the narrative & agenda spun by a foreign government- Israel, won the argument & forced us into this war,” he continued. “We need to understand exactly how this happened to ensure we are never put in this position again.”
Kent resigned from his post in March in protest against the unwarranted US‑Israeli aggression against Iran.
In his resignation letter, he criticized US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the war, according to Press TV.
Kent asserted that Iran did not pose an immediate threat to the US.
“I cannot in good conscience support the war against Iran,” Kent wrote on March 17, 2025, in a post on the social media platform X.
He pointed out that the Israelis forced Trump into the war. “It is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
MNA
