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Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent is reiterating his call for the withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East amid the ongoing war with Iran.
“Get our troops out now before we suffer a mass casualty attack. Break the escalation trap. Trump still has the political strength at home to declare victory & have it resonate, that ability will be lost if we suffer more casualties. Now is the time to leave, immediately,” he wrote Sunday on X.
Kent made the comments while sharing a post from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
“Yesterday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the passing of two U.S. service members and the missing status of one in Jordan following an Iranian attack on July 17. After a thorough search, U.S. military personnel found unidentified remains at the location earlier today. An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing,” CENTCOM noted in part of a statement on Sunday.
“Separately, a U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. A second service member was wounded and continues to receive medical treatment for a minor injury,” the statement noted.
US SERVICE MEMBER KILLED IN IRAQ AS TROOPS RECOVER UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS IN JORDAN: CENTCOM
President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One upon arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, N.Y. on July 17, 2026. (Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
A White House spokesperson on Monday pointed Fox News Digital to comments President Donald Trump had made on Sunday.
“Well, we feel very badly. But you know those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
“Iran has been very, very badly damaged,” he said, asserting that the foreign nation has “lost everything, almost, militarily. They’ve got very little left. They’ve got some missiles. They’ve got some drones. They’ve got some manufacturing ability — not much,” he said. “We control the Strait. They don’t control anything. So we’ll see what happens. But we hit ’em very hard again tonight,” he said, adding that “we did that in honor of the probably three — it’s probably three, as opposed to two — great patriots.”
Kent quit the counterterrorism government post earlier this year, citing his opposition to the Iran war.
In part of his resignation letter he asserted, “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.”
Joseph Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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In a portion of a Saturday post on X he wrote, “We restore order by ending the conflict on our terms: deprive Iran of military targets to strike by removing our troops, bases, & naval forces from the area. Our bases in the region are liabilities & relics of the past—abandoning them is not retreat, it’s strategic adaptation to modern warfare. This move removes Iran’s primary justification for disrupting shipping in the SOH and for attacking its neighbors. We can then offer the carrot: sanctions relief in exchange for freedom of navigation in the SOH.”
