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Joe Kent, a<\/span> top counterterrorism official in the Trump administration, resigned Tuesday citing his opposition to the ongoing war in Iran.<\/p>\n Kent\u2019s resignation came as the most recent and perhaps most consequential of a series of rifts opening on the far right over the war in Iran. While most of the defections had come from MAGA media figures, Kent\u2019s departure from his role as director of the National Counterterrorism Center was the first major defection from the administration.<\/p>\n In his letter of resignation, Kent condemned the war as a violation of the president\u2019s campaign promises to steer clear of foreign wars, criticizing what he described as Israeli pressure as a catalyst for dragging the U.S. into a deadly potential quagmire.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,\u201d wrote Kent in a letter<\/a> posted to X, where it had received nearly 100 million views as of Friday morning. \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<\/p>\n Kent is not the only government national security professional disaffected by Donald Trump\u2019s war in Iran, according to advocates for conscientious objection who say they\u2019re fielding nonstop calls from distressed service members. Many service members could refuse to take part in the war, either by refusing outright \u2014 and risking punishment \u2014 or by declaring as conscientious objectors, according to Mike Prysner, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War<\/a>, a group that counsels members of the military on their rights in objecting to participation in or support of combat operations.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the kind of thing that really resonates: seeing respected people in positions of power validating what many service members feel, which is that this is bad and people shouldn\u2019t take part in it,\u201d Prysner said. \u201cThere are a lot of people who may be inspired by what Kent did.\u201d<\/p>\n Prysner said that in the weeks since the war began with joint U.S.\u2013Israeli airstrikes on February 28, the group\u2019s phones have been ringing around the clock. Active-duty military personnel and military families are scrambling, he said, to figure out what their rights might be in refusing to take part in the war. His group has helped dozens of service members explore or start applications to declare as conscientious objectors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve started more people in the CO process in the past two weeks than we typically do over the period of a year,\u201d Prysner said.<\/p>\n Prysner said the group has spoken with service members occupying ranks from major to private, including three fighter pilots.<\/p>\n Prysner\u2019s numbers could not be independently confirmed, and representatives of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the number of new applications for conscientious-objector status.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kent, an Army veteran who later served in the CIA before running as a hard-right House candidate in Washington state<\/a>, is the most senior member of the administration to resign over the war in Iran. Until Tuesday, he served under Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence and herself a former critic<\/a> of pressure to the U.S. and Israel to carry out regime change in Iran.<\/p>\n The resignation came amid a broader split in the MAGA movement<\/a>, with some Trump loyalists backing up the president\u2019s decision to go to war while others, perhaps most notably conservative pundit Tucker Carlson<\/a>, questioning the logic of attacking Iran in concert with Israel. In the wake of Kent\u2019s announcement, Trump called his departure \u201ca good thing,\u201d while White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the letter was brimming with \u201cfalse claims.\u201d Kent, according to media reports<\/a>, was the subject of a leak investigation by the FBI.<\/p>\n The U.S. military offers service members avenues to avoid combat<\/a> or even be discharged from the ranks if they can prove that they hold religious, moral, or ethical objection to \u201cwar in any form.\u201d The practice in the U.S. of declaring as a conscientious objector goes back as far as the U.S. military, although the regulations around it and the reasons cited by would-be conscientious objectors have expanded over time, and in the current, all-volunteer military, regulations require that one\u2019s believes have \u201ccrystalized\u201d since signing on.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s totally valid for people to cite a specific conflict in their CO application, as long as that leads them to the broader realization that they cannot participate in any war,\u201d Prysner said. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely valid for service members to look at the war in Iran and make the conclusion that they can\u2019t be part of this in any form.\u201d<\/p>\n Prysner is himself a veteran who served in the Iraq War, and came to anti-war activism after his deployments there. He said he began to question the violence unleashed in Iraq after coming into contact with Iraqis. In the age of the internet<\/a>, however, the horrors of war<\/a> can be quickly beamed into people\u2019s phones and social media<\/a>, potentially spurring more members of the military to question their role in that violence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nSkyrocketing Objections<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cSooner the Better\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n