After US President Donald Trump claimed to have held two days of talks with Iran, which he described as “productive”, his former counter-terror adviser Joseph ‘Joe’ Kent stated the conflict would finish provided that US ally Israel is retrained first.
“Step 1 in deescalation have to be restraining the Israelis, in any other case all efforts to barter will comply with this sample: POTUS publicly publicizes deescalation. Israel takes main strikes to destroy the negotiations & in flip weaken our capability to barter. The conflict accelerates,” Joe Kent wrote on X.
He made one other publish by which he stated, “President Trump is working to get peace with Iran, if he could make this occur it will likely be an excellent factor for our nation & our allies within the Gulf. The Israelis shall be towards this, however POTUS is powerful & can get them on board.”
Israel has not instantly reacted to Trump’s claims, whereas Iran has denied any such talks had been being held.
Trump, nevertheless, doubled down on his declare after he introduced that, owing to the “talks”, he was suspending by 5 days his risk to hit vitality websites. Iran mocked him in flip, saying he is “backed down”.
Trump nonetheless informed US TV channels that Iran “needs to make a deal badly”, and gave a timeline: “inside 5 days or much less”.
He even stated he was speaking to a “senior chief” however not the Iran Supreme Chief Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father and predecessor was killed on the primary of the US-Israeli assault in Tehran.
As for Joe Kent, who give up as director of the US Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle final Tuesday, he’d already stated Israel pressured the US into the conflict.
“I can not in good conscience help the continued conflict in Iran. Iran posed no imminent risk to our nation, and it’s clear that we began this conflict attributable to strain from Israel and its highly effective American foyer,” he wrote in his letter to Trump.
“I help the values and the overseas insurance policies that you simply campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first time period. Till June of 2025, you understood that the wars within the Center East had been a entice that robbed America of the dear lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation,” he argued,
He added, “Early on this administration, high-ranking Israeli officers and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation marketing campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a conflict with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent risk to the US, and that ought to you strike now, there was a transparent path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is identical tactic the Israelis used to attract us into the disastrous Iraq conflict that value our nation the lives of 1000’s of our greatest women and men. We can not make this error once more.”
Joe Kent served within the US Military for 20 years. After retiring from the Military in 2018, he served as a paramilitary officer within the CIA’s Particular Actions Middle, and ultimately entered public life.
As a Republican, he ran for the US Congress too.
In his letter, he additionally talked about how, in 2019, his then spouse, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, was killed in a suicide bombing whereas serving in Syria.
“It’s her legacy and sprit, together with numerous different women and men who we’ve misplaced within the conflict on terror that drives the mission at NCTC,” his profile on the federal government web site famous.
he’s an Oregon native and a graduate of Norwich College in Strategic Protection Evaluation. At current, he lives together with his present spouse Heather, who’s a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and their two sons.
