Leo Hohmann – Leo’s Newsletter March 17, 2026

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President Trump’s director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, Joe Kent, resigned Tuesday over disagreements regarding the war in Iran, becoming the first senior Trump administration official to jump ship over a military operation that appears to have gone off the rails and is going to last much longer than planned.

Kent is a highly decorated veteran and fierce advocate of the America-first agenda. His wife, Shannon, also a member of the U.S. military, was killed in Syria in 2019 “in a war manufactured by Israel,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

So this is a man who knows all too well the costs of waging a war under false pretenses, claiming it’s for one reason when it’s clearly tied to another. The former Green Beret and Army Ranger saw 11 deployments as a combat veteran and later ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Washington state. He’s also served as a CIA analyst.

He described the launching of the Iran war as a grave mistake by President Trump.

Kent’s resignation is the first indication that the House of Trump is divided over the issue of waging war on Iran. Perhaps Tulsi Gabbard will be the next Trump advisor to follow suit and resign rather than pretend to support a war she isn’t convinced is worth the cost.

Kent said he could not “in good conscience” continue to do his job while the U.S. waged war in the Middle East, a war he said was out of step with President Trump’s America First agenda.

“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,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter.

Trump, of course, said the exact opposite when he launched the war nearly three weeks ago.

Trump pointed to “imminent threats” that he said directly endanger U.S. troops, bases overseas and allies.

“For these reasons, the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests,” Trump said at the outset of the war on February 28.

Kent said he still supports the values Trump campaigned on in 2016, 2020 and 2024, stating:

“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.”

Kent said in the president’s first term, that Trump “understood better than any modern president” how to “decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into neverending wars.”

But that Trump seems like a distant memory and there is a clear indication that he made deals with billionaire donors who represent the most radical neocon wing of the Republican Party. In fact, many of Trump’s billionaire donors were previously Democrats. They switched sides because they saw an opportunity in a man who was so desperate to win back the White House, he was willing to agree to some of the most outrageous commitments any president has ever signed on to. He would do the unthinkable, even invading a country of 92 million with a 5,000-year-old civilization that has a history of serving as the graveyard of empires invading from the West. He would do it even though it was the opposite of what he promised in his campaign. He would do it even against the advice of his own military advisors. He would do it simply because he could and Israel wanted him to.

The problem is that both the Israelis and the Christian Zionists inside the Trump administration, people like Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee, are not living in the real world. They are pushing policies that they believe will advance their personal interpretations of biblical prophecies. Because they believe in these interpretations, they believe it’s impossible for them to lose this war because God is on their side. This false paradigm will be exposed in the near future for all to see. These officials, including Trump, will be exposed as radical Israel-first zealots who do not have the best interests of America, or Israel, at heart. They are simply living in a dream world of their own creation that traces back to false prophets from 19th century England.

Kent cited “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” who deployed a misinformation campaign that “wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.”

Kent further stated:

“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.”

Trump’s response to the Joe Kent resignation will be predictable.

Get ready for a barrage of anti-Joe Kent tweets trashing him as weak and anti-American. He will likely be called a “loser” who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, despite his years of experience in the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus.

Whenever Trump is confronted with truth, he resorts to ad hominem attacks. The only trait he truly values in an advisor is absolute loyalty to his pre-conceived notions of unrivaled U.S. supremacy on a military and economic scale that simply doesn’t exist. This is why most of his cabinet is filled with yes-men and yes-women who refuse to give him solid advice, or to stand their ground when he goes against such advice.

But the facts have a way of catching up with reality and Trump is nearing that point.

Here’s the bottom line: As long as Iran can keep the Strait of Hormuz closed to U.S. and allied commercial shipping traffic, it holds the upper hand in this war. It doesn’t even matter if Iran runs out of missiles to launch at Israel. As long as it can keep its regime intact and keep manufacturing enough low-cost drones to fire at ships traversing the Strait, it will be the big winner in this war.

Israel and the United States will be the losers, because they will be seen as the aggressors who launched an unnecessary war of choice that brought economic pain to the entire world.

Even countries that have historically sided with the United States in global affairs will start to question themselves as to what they have to gain by remaining an ally of the United States, a country that decides unilaterally to launch wars that affect every country, including allies, in negative ways.

Russia and China will be the big winners. Russia is pumping and selling more oil than ever, and every weapon the U.S. uses against Iran is one less it can provide to Ukraine in its Western proxy war against Russia.

China continues to get oil from Iran and could use America’s obsession with Iran and Israel’s wars to launch a takeover of Taiwan.

Trump’s options going forward look grim.

He can declare a phony victory claiming to have decimated the Iranian military, even though that which has been degraded, mostly its missiles and missile launchers, can quickly be rebuilt, while its large army remains completely intact.

Or, he can escalate the war further in one of two ways. He could launch a ground invasion, a move almost certain to be met with catastrophic losses of U.S. troops when they meet large numbers of dug-in Iranian units that have prepared for this fight for 25 years.

The other option is perhaps the most ominous and I guarantee it is being seriously considered – launching a nuclear attack on Iran’s military units, which would include, by necessity, hitting population centers across Iran. This would most likely be carried out by Israel but it could also come from nuclear-armed U.S. ships in the region.

Looking at these scenarios going forward, is it any surprise that anyone with half a conscience left in Trump’s administration would resign?

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