Let’s say something nice about Joe Kent. I know, it’s difficult. Kent is a Make-America-Great-Again Republican. He agreed with Trump that the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election, a statement not in Kent’s favor. But in politics, if someone makes a public stand for an issue important to you, and sacrifices his big, important job to say it, you should praise him.
It doesn’t mean you endorse everything about the guy. And what I see with the resignation of Joe Kent is a bleacher full of people who agree with him about this war, but will not stand up to cheer him because he is not on their team.
Joe Kent ran for Congress twice from the 3rd district of Washington and was twice defeated by Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, a moderate Democrat, because he was too Trumpy. He had an air of soreness and defiance about him. Kent served as an Army Ranger and Green Beret. He was deployed 11 times and was decorated many times for bravery.
In 2019 he lost his wife, Shannon, to a suicide bomber in Syria, which gives him a perspective on the Middle East that most of us don’t have. Kent was loudly against unnecessary wars — a position also taken by Donald Trump. And early in his second term, Trump appointed Joe Kent to be the federal head of counterterrorism.
Kent has now become the first high federal official to resign in protest of Trump’s war on Iran. In his letter of resignation, posted on X, Kent wrote, “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.”
For blaming Israel, Kent has been accused of antisemitism, but it is not antisemitic as such to criticize the government in Jerusalem. The Washington Post, which is not an antisemitic newspaper, wrote, “Two people familiar with the decision-making, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity, said that Israel began a coordinated effort to pressure the U.S. into striking within the very first weeks after the new Trump administration took office.”
That our government started the war “due to” Israel’s pressure is debatable; it seems to me that it started the war due to the calculations in Donald Trump’s head. But Kent was not wrong in saying there was pressure from Israel, and that Israel has a lobby in the United States. That’s not a conspiracy theory.
Kent is not wrong, either, in stating that this war is being waged in Israel’s interest. Does anyone believe that Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on us? It would seem more likely that they would drop one on Israel, which would be Israel’s problem — but Israel also has nuclear weapons. Nine countries on the planet have nuclear weapons, and only one of them — the United States — has used them in war. And that was 80 years ago.
No American should like the idea of Iran with a nuclear weapon, but going to war every few years is not a long-term solution. Every attack makes Iran’s leaders more desperate to have a nuclear deterrent, and that’s probably what Iran is seeking. Note that Trump has not been threatening war against Russia, China, or North Korea. The US President is nice to them. He bullies Denmark over Greenland and Panama over its canal. He kidnaps the president of Venezuela and blocks their oil going to Cuba. But he leaves Kim Jong Un alone. The leaders of Iran must want what Kim has — membership in the Don’t Tread On Me club. The key to that clubhouse is a nuclear bomb.
Iran’s leaders say they hate Israel because of its domination of the Palestinians. Israel says it has a “right to exist,” while denying the same right to the Palestinians. It is not an honorable position, and it’s not only Iran that says so. Israel needs to make some concessions. If this conflict is to be settled, a homeland needs to be created for the Palestinians.
Joe Kent didn’t say anything about that. Republicans have a blind spot when it comes to the Palestinians, as do some Democrats. I watch CNN, which shows the suffering in Gaza but slides over the Palestinians’ long-term political grievance, which is not news. CNN is much more interested in how much Donald Trump’s war has raised the price of gasoline.
In the midst of all this unseriousness, Joe Kent, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, has resigned to protest Donald Trump’s war. It’s an adult act, an act of integrity. By itself it won’t stop the war, but it adds to the pressure against it, which is all a guy like Joe Kent can do. People who agree with him should appreciate that.
Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he disagrees with Kent on many things. “But on this point, he is right,” Warner said. “There was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice in the Middle East.”
Kent’s boss, Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, was another opponent of unnecessary wars appointed by Trump. When Trump started a war with Iran, Gabbard was loudly silent.
Prodded to respond to Kent’s resignation, she released a written statement: “As our Commander in Chief, [Donald Trump] is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people, and our country.” In other words, going to war was Trump’s decision to make, not hers.
She wants to keep her job. We’ll see how that works out.
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Until I hear him retract and apologize for his statement that Anthony Fauci should be tried for murder, he’ll get no praise from me.
Totally agree.
Joe is the “no foreign wars” MAGA.
MAGA is NOT me!
But on Iran he is correct.
Trump was influenced by Israel, I presume, but more for his “legacy.” And now is in a dire “Strait.”
Not so fast, Luce.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/what-joe-kent-and-candace-owens-are-really-up-to-in-their-critiques-of-the-iran-war
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“Kent has a long history of proximity to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and his resignation letter paired his criticism of Trump’s war with antisemitic tropes.”
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He’s pandering to some very bad actors, and deserves no slack whatever.
Quotes from that letter, that mention Israel:
“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.”
“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.”
Does any of that seem to be in error, or anti-semitic? The Iraq part is open to dispute – Netanyahu was pitching it, but he wasn’t in office.
Kent is a toxic screwball, but you know, clock can be right twice a day.
Joe Kent is not one of America’s great political thinkers of our time, such as (ermmm) and (cough-cough) — well, let’s just say he’s no scholar of stuff like the separation of powers and the constitution.
But when it comes to imminent threats on American security and Middle East wars, he’s been schooled by experience, and his opinion that Trump’s war on Iran is unnecessary ought to carry weight with Congress and thoughtful members of the public. Even with the MAGA contingent, most of whom appear to agree with Kent’s anti-Iran war sentiment.
I don’t care for much of what Joe Kent stands for, but his take on Iran aligns with my own opinion more or less. And I applaud him for his bravery in publicly distancing himself from Trump on the war, and voluntarily leaving a high-status DC job.
I hope Joe will continue to speak out courageously against the war, and against the Trump Administration’s imperialist policies in general.
This is a bit off topic, but has anyone else noted Joe Kent’s uncanny resemblance to 50’s-60’s comic strip character, L’il Abner?
It’s laughable (and anti-semitic) to portray DJT as a pitiable Israeli puppet, as Kent does. Yes, the president is narcissistic and stupid, easily moved by obsequious shows of fealty — but that doesn’t mean he lacks agency. Did the Great Jewish Conspiracy also compel Trump to blow up all those boats in the Caribbean, attack Venezuela and kidnap its president, threaten Greenland, Cuba and Canada with invasion? No, and folks who think Joe Kent is some kind of courageous, foreign policy sage strike me as nearly as loony as he is — a genuine nutjob who believes the FBI staged the January 6th attack on the Capitol; that white Americans are victims of a “Great Replacement” scheme. (And yeah, guess who is orchestrating that one? Ask Robert Bowers.) If you want to understand Trump’s foreign policy, please read Wendy Liu’s smart PA piece. For DJT, “America First” never meant restraint. It always meant Teddy Roosevelt-style imperialism. (We can thank his generals for curbing the president’s imperalist tendencies during Trump 1.0.) We’re seeing the real deal now — “America First” as U.S. domination driven by masculinism (the “Man in the Arena,” as TR said). And it’s not a Jewish conspiracy.
“…Joe Kent, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, has resigned to protest Donald Trump’s war. It’s an adult act, an act of integrity. By itself it won’t stop the war, but it adds to the pressure against it, which is all a guy like Joe Kent can do. People who agree with him should appreciate that.”
People who dwell in the liberal political bubble need to understand that the primary argument for applauding Kent’s defection includes of all reasons that cause liberals to so fervently deplore him. This is the defection of a MAGA true believer. Its value lies precisely in Kent’s bizarrely unacceptable redneck populist purity, his faithful and unwavering allegiance to all the things you hate. It signifies the emergence of a major crack in the heretofore mostly impregnable MAGA psychological armor.
One must say mostly impregnable because Kent’s defection was famously preceded by that of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who discovered somewhat to her surprise that her sense of solidarity with sexually exploited lower class adolescent females was stronger than her loyalty to Donald Trump. So she publicly broke with him over his suppression of the federal trove of Epstein files. Just as Trump promised disoriented and angry Middle East military veterans such as Kent no more imperialist foreign wars, he promised Q-Anon conspiratorial fanatics such as Greene full release of the Epstein investigative materials.
This significance of these matters is symbolic. It matters not a whit what the cracks in the MAGA armor represent in global power terms or how accurate their underlying factual assessments might be. All that matters is that these fissures finally have emerged among a few sincerely delusional high profile political figures whose MAGA credentials are impeccable. They are people that other MAGA true believers will regard as authentic. Greene and Kent will be given a hearing by their erstwhile poetical allies.
If there is to be any hope for a peaceful resolution of our current bitter political stalement, it will require that the MAGA faithful reassess their love affair with Donald Trump and conclude that their affection was misplaced. Nobody should care why they do it or whether it has made them into better human beings. It just needs to somehow happen. And it would surely help if their morally superior liberal brethren could find it in their undeniably virtuous hearts to be non-judgmentally supportive. Or is that simply asking too much?