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It's war within Trump admin over Iran: Top official quits, blames ‘Israeli lobby’, while Netanyahu wants 'more action'
Trump called Joe Kent “very weak” after Kent, in his resignation letter, questioned the very rationale for the Iran war; Netanyahu's video showed up in between
The US-Israel military alliance faced a direct challenge from within the American administration on Tuesday over the Iran war. Donald Trump's top anti-terror aide, Joseph ‘Joe’ Kent, resigned and called the conflict a “manipulation” by Israel. Within minutes, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gloated in a video about the alliance, and promised more “surprises”. The series of events underlined deep fissures as the war widens and drags.
In his first reaction to the resignation, Trump later called it “a good thing", and termed Joe Kent — a war veteran — “very weak on security”. He slammed Kent's assessment that Iran was not an imminent threat to American lives.
In his letter to Trump, Kent alleged that Israel “pressured” the US into a needless conflict.
Forty-three minutes after Kent posted his resignation, Benjamin Netanyahu showed up in a video on X. In it, he made claims about assassinating top Iranian officials, and said there will be more military action.
What Joe Kent said on US-Israel ties
In his resignation from the post of Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent questioned the very rationale for the war, which is now in its third week.
“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," he wrote.
Kent served 20 years in the US Army and retired as a Special Forces officer before joining the CIA's Special Activities Centre; and then turning to public life. He is an eleven-time combat veteran, as per US government websites.
A Republican, Kent also ran for the US Congress once, and is known to have held right-wing views aligned with Trump.
Now, he becomes the senior-most official so far to publicly break with the Trump administration over Operation Epic Fury that began on February 28.
Trump has insisted that the joint US-Israeli campaign is about disallowing Iran from having nuclear weapons. Iran has said it never planned to make any atom bombs anyway.
Kent's letter also directly contested Trump's logic. He accused "high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media" of deploying what he calls a "misinformation campaign" that manufactured the impression of imminence.
"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," ," he wrote to Trump.
Kent directly invoked the Iraq War of the early 2000s, in which he served as a soldier, as a precedent and warning: “This 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.”
Kent went personal as well, underlining that his wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon M Kent, was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019 — one of the wars he now describes as “manufactured by Israel”.
His current wife, Heather, is also a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
What Netanyahu said on ‘superpower’ alliance
Netanyahu, meanwhile, persisted with in an altogether different tone and scale in his video. Speaking in Hebrew, he said the Israel Defence Forces had killed Ali Larijani, the de facto leader of the Iranian regime, and other senior figures of the Islamic Republic. He described the killings as “civilisational” victories.
He pointedly referred also to the October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian group Hamas, in which 1,200 Israelis died; after which Israeli military action in Gaza killed around 70,000 people.
Also read | US sides with Israel in Gaza genocide case at top UN court
Netanyahu said Israel went “from the brink of destruction” after the 2023 Hamas attack to fighting alongside the “world's foremost military power”, the US.
On Trump, Netanyahu spoke of extensive co-ordination personally, saying he had spoken at length with the US President about more joint operations in the Gulf. Iran has widened its retaliation to US bases in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other neighbours around the Persian Gulf.
Trump's many stances
Trump's own public statements, meanwhile, have been inconsistent on the war's very purpose. He has sometimes described the military progress as “overwhelming dominance”, and then said there are still “some more weeks to go”.
He has also sought help.
Yet, on Tuesday, Trump said the US now won't need NATO's help, after the UK and Australia refused to send naval ships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil supply that Iran has choked.
Also read | Trump's not-so-straight claims on Hormuz Strait: What President's Truth Social reveals
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been among those asking questions within the American system.
"Trump created a mess in the Middle East, and he clearly has no plan for how to end it, and that is a huge problem for our country," Schumer said from the Senate floor, reported NBC.
The Democratic Party has even asked the Republican regime to open an investigation into a deadly strike on a girls' school in Iran that killed over 100 children.
‘You hold the cards’
Joe Kent, in his resignation letter, desired for the Trump of old.
"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," he wrote.
There was an appeal in conclusion: "I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. 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."
Trump's reaction and Netanyahu's address showed no signs of any cards being folded for now. Netanyahu told Israelis to “ignore pessimism”, while Trump again said Israel has been a “very strong support” for the US.
