{"id":325004,"date":"2026-03-19T07:27:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=325004"},"modified":"2026-03-20T08:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:58:14","slug":"trumps-advisers-circle-the-wagons-as-signs-of-dissent-over-iran-emerge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=325004","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s advisers circle the wagons as signs of dissent over Iran emerge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Story by Dustin Volz, Josh Dawsey, Meridith McGraw \u2013 Wall Street Journal March 18, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n
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Joe Kent, the Trump administration\u2019s top counterterrorism official, informed the White House on Monday night that he planned to step down, citing objections to the war in Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But many White House aides didn\u2019t expect Kent to announce his resignation<\/a> publicly, on government letterhead, for all the world to see, according to a senior administration official.<\/p>\n

That decision\u2014which ricocheted through Washington and foreign capitals on Tuesday\u2014set off a scramble among President Trump\u2019s top advisers, who moved quickly to criticize Kent, minimize his influence in the government and send a tacit message to administration officials that open skepticism of the war won\u2019t be tolerated.<\/p>\n

Kent\u2019s one-page letter, posted on his X account and viewed more than 70 million times as of Tuesday evening, marked the first time that a senior U.S. official publicly expressed opposition to the war. Kent alleged Trump had been duped into the conflict by people with ulterior motives.<\/p>\n

The episode unfolded as Trump has grown increasingly frustrated in recent days. In conversations with advisers, he has expressed outrage about media coverage of the operation. He has lamented that U.S. allies aren\u2019t doing more to help and that the Strait of Hormuz hasn\u2019t yet been opened to allow the safe passage of oil, according to people who have spoken to him. He is tracking the rise in gasoline prices closely. Some of Trump\u2019s advisers hope the war will wind down in the coming weeks, the people said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never heard him so angry in my life,\u201d Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) wrote on social media on Tuesday of Trump, as the president announced that most NATO allies had declined to get involved in military operations in Iran.<\/p>\n

The White House declined to comment, pointing to a statement from press secretary Karoline Leavitt released earlier Tuesday in which she disputed Kent\u2019s letter and asserted that the president had \u201cstrong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his resignation letter, Kent voiced a sentiment that is quietly gaining momentum in some corners of Washington, as conservative influencers, some Republican lawmakers and a handful of Trump\u2019s outside advisers urge him to end the conflict quickly, fearing political and economic fallout from an extended operation.<\/p>\n

Before Kent went public with his concerns, David Sacks, a tech investor and adviser to Trump on AI, called on the president to find an offramp. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take a political genius to understand that long wars are unpopular,\u201d Sacks said on his podcast last week, adding, \u201cWrap this thing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump acknowledged last week that Vice President JD Vance is \u201cphilosophically a little bit different\u201d and \u201cmaybe less enthusiastic about going\u201d to war in Iran. Vance, a longtime critic of U.S. involvement in prolonged foreign conflicts, backed Trump\u2019s decision to launch the war and brushed off a question about his personal views. \u201cWe have a smart president, whereas in the past, we\u2019ve had dumb presidents, and I trust President Trump to get the job done,\u201d he said this week.<\/p>\n

Kent informed Vance on Monday that he planned to resign, according to people familiar with the matter, a conversation earlier reported by the Washington Post. He also informed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles about his decision and Trump was made aware of the pending resignation, according to the senior administration official.<\/p>\n

A Vance spokesman said the vice president \u201cbelieves that it\u2019s imperative for the national security team to remain cohesive, trust one another, and avoid mouthing off to the media about internal deliberations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Republican lawmakers have urged Trump to pull out of Iran. \u201cI wish that the president would figure out a way to end the war. I think it\u2019s becoming more challenging every day how you do that,\u201d said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska). Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a critic of the war, praised Kent: \u201cI know he was America first from the very beginning, and still is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,\u201d Kent wrote in his resignation letter. \u201cIran 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.\u201d His statement about Israel echoed complaints from some influencers within the noninterventionist wing of the Trump coalition\u2014including his ally Tucker Carlson, a prominent conservative media personality.<\/p>\n

Supporters of Israel criticized Kent\u2019s comments. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said Kent\u2019s letter was rife with \u201cvirulent anti-Semitism.\u201d Trump also criticized Kent\u2019s views. \u201cI always thought he was a nice guy but weak on security,\u201d the president told reporters in the Oval Office. \u201cWhen I read his statement I realized it\u2019s a good thing he\u2019s out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has stocked his administration with opponents of the so-called \u201cforever wars\u201d in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Kent\u2019s boss, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday afternoon, Gabbard released a statement aimed at countering the contention Kent made in his resignation letter that Iran didn\u2019t pose an imminent threat to the U.S. As commander in chief, Gabbard wrote, Trump is \u201cresponsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat.\u201d After reviewing the intelligence before him, she continued, \u201cPresident Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.\u201d Gabbard\u2019s statement didn\u2019t mention Kent by name, and didn\u2019t outline her own views on the war.<\/p>\n

The White House has dismissed skepticism of the war. Trump told reporters Sacks hadn\u2019t voiced his opinions to him in person. And on Tuesday, White House officials said Kent wasn\u2019t involved in planning for the war and hadn\u2019t been involved in any of the discussions about its execution.<\/p>\n

White House officials said they had previously expressed displeasure about Kent to Gabbard. Kent, according to the officials, was sidelined in recent months from the team that delivers intelligence briefings to the president. An administration official said Gabbard was never asked by the White House to fire Kent.<\/p>\n

Kent was a former acting chief of staff to Gabbard, and the two were seen within Gabbard\u2019s office as close confidants, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials who worked around them.<\/p>\n

ODNI declined to comment beyond Gabbard\u2019s social-media post. Kent couldn\u2019t be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Kent, 45, completed 11 combat deployments and was a Republican congressional candidate in Washington state in 2022 and 2024, losing both times. His wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologist, died in 2019 during a suicide-bomber attack in Syria. He referenced her death in his Tuesday letter.<\/p>\n

Kent\u2019s opposition to the Iran war was clear to people who knew the Army veteran, former colleagues said. He had long expressed noninterventionist foreign-policy views and was wary of foreign entanglements lacking a clear goal or end date.<\/p>\n

During a January 2024 interview with Carlson, Kent said attacking Iran risked a \u201cvery bloody\u201d spiraling conflict in the Middle East that would be hard for the U.S. to extract itself from.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolute insanity,\u201d Kent said. \u201cIt\u2019s opening up Pandora\u2019s box.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The resignation of Trump\u2019s top counter-terrorism official echoes a growing disenchantment among Trump\u2019s MAGA supporters. Does Trump\u2019s foreign policy really serve America\u2019s interests, or is it being tailored for Israel\u2019s benefit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Inside_the_White_House_and_Washingtons_Beltway","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=325004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325005,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325004\/revisions\/325005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=325004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=325004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=325004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}