Joe Kent, who resigned as Trump’s National Counterterrorism Center director in March over his opposition to the Iran war, said the president’s decision to call off a planned major strike was the right call, and urged Trump to go further by withdrawing American troops from the region entirely.
“President Trump again called off strikes on Iran, this is a good decision,” Kent wrote on X. “It is clear that he wants out of this war, for all the obvious reasons. It is also clear that Iran will not simply return the SOH to how it was before the war. We need to accept that we can’t use military force to open the SOH, we’ve tried that, without a catastrophic escalation into a bloody, years-long war.”
Kent, using the abbreviation for the Strait of Hormuz, argued Trump should declare the war’s original objective achieved and bring troops home. “Now is the time for President Trump to pull our troops out of the region,” Kent wrote. “He can declare victory, reiterate the previously stated goal, no nukes, was met, and quietly use the carrot of sanctions relief to open the SOH once our troops are out of harm’s way. If we stay, we risk accelerating an escalation/retaliation cycle we can’t control.”
Kent shared an image of the Truth Social post that prompted his response, in which Trump announced he had canceled a planned large-scale strike. “The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II,” Trump wrote. “Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to. This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat. Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL. The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment.”
Kent’s standing as a war critic carries particular weight within Trump’s own coalition. A 20-year Army combat veteran with 11 deployments who later worked for the CIA, Kent resigned as NCTC director on March 17, becoming the most senior sitting Trump administration official to quit in protest of the war. “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 statement, according to Rolling Stone’s report on the letter. “As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.” Kent’s wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologic technician, was killed in a 2019 ISIS suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria.
Trump had appointed Kent to the NCTC post in February 2025, and the Senate confirmed him in July 2025 by a 52-44 party-line vote. Trump dismissed Kent’s resignation the same day it was announced. “It’s a good thing that he’s out,” Trump told reporters, saying he had “always thought” Kent was “very weak on security” and disputing Kent’s assessment that Iran posed no imminent threat.
Kent’s departure exposed broader tensions within the administration over the war’s necessity. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who had appointed Kent to the NCTC role as her senior aide, has separately taken a skeptical position on the conflict, according to reporting from Israel Hayom, which described her as having been “sidelined in White House decision-making” over her opposition to the war.
Iran directly disputed Trump’s characterization of the pause within hours of his post. Iran’s Mehr News Agency, citing military officials, called Trump’s claim that Tehran had requested a halt “nothing but a new lie,” while Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency quoted a member of Iran’s negotiating team saying no agreement had been reached on reopening the strait and that any passage would remain contingent on approval from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.
The pause followed a phone call between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in which the Saudi leader “stressed the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation,” according to an official statement from the Saudi Press Agency.
Kent’s call for withdrawal aligns him with a broader, informal coalition of non-interventionist voices, both inside and outside the administration, who have argued since the war’s Feb. 28 start that the conflict lacks a clear, achievable military objective regarding the Strait of Hormuz specifically, distinct from the administration’s stated nuclear nonproliferation goal.
Before his brief tenure atop U.S. counterterrorism policy, Kent ran twice unsuccessfully for Congress in Washington state as a Republican, building a national profile in part through frequent appearances on Tucker Carlson’s former Fox News program.
Neither the White House nor Trump has issued a direct public response to Kent’s latest statement.