An intelligence official who resigned from President Donald Trump’s administration to protest the war in Iran argued America now “stands in danger” of his rage.“Trump believes he is threatening Iran with destruction, but it is America that now stands in danger,” Joe Kent, former Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center, posted on the social media platform X on Tuesday. “If he attempts to eradicate Iranian civilization, the United States will no longer be viewed as a stabilizing force in the world, but as an agent of chaos — effectively ending our status as the world’s greatest superpower.”He added, “This would upend our economy and shatter the global order. The process is already underway, yet we still have time to avert catastrophe if Trump finds the courage to pursue serious negotiations rather than reckless rage and destruction.”Kent, who resigned in March to protest Trump’s unprovoked invasion of Iran, told right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson last month that he believes a “foreign nexus” influenced Trump to invade Iran and was also responsible for the assassination of late right-wing advocate, Charlie Kirk.“Things really got going on Tuesday when Kent told conservative writer (and two-time failed California gubernatorial candidate) Michael Shellenberger he’d be willing to testify in accused Kirk murderer Tyler Robinson’s defense that the FBI botched the investigation,” wrote The Bulwark’s conservative pundit Will Sommer at the time. “Kent told Shellenberger he was warned his own inquiry into Kirk’s murder — which he operated from his government post, separately from the FBI — could hurt the prosecution against Robinson.”Kent then added, “I was definitely warned of that over and over again. If I end up having to [be called as a witness], then I’ll do it. It’s not something I’m seeking.”Because Kent has also claimed Trump invaded Iran due to Israel’s manipulation, some experts are concerned his claims are exacerbating antisemitism.“When a nation starts a war for dubious reasons and then suffers the consequences, there is inevitably a search for scapegoats,” military historian Max Boot wrote for The Washington Post last month. “Conspiracy theories abound. It happened after World War I, when the favorite villains were ‘merchants of death’ and international bankers. It happened again after the Iraq War, which some blamed on ‘neoconservatives’ and Halliburton, the oil-services giant led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president.”All of these scapegoats — the so-called “merchants of death, “international bankers,” “neoconservatives” and so on — are code words for “Jews,” Boot added. Now the longtime editorialist speculated Trump’s “foolhardy war against Iran” will cause this to happen again.“As so often happens, the Jews — or, if you prefer a polite euphemism, ‘Zionists’ or ‘the Israel lobby’ — make a handy fall guy,” Boot concluded. “What the right-wing fringe once whispered — that this was ‘a war for Israel’ — suddenly burst onto the front pages last week thanks to Joe Kent’s resignation as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. In a blistering public letter, Kent wrote that ‘Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation’ and that ‘we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Deal or no deal, Iran war has birthed a new world order
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