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Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent’s resignation letter raises a question that’s going to become increasingly important in the coming months and years: How do we talk about Israel’s undeniable role in pushing the United States into a catastrophic war without either letting Washington, and President Donald Trump himself, off the hook or slipping into the spreading morass of antisemitism?

When it comes to the war in Iran, Kent has reaffirmed what we already knew. In his letter, which he posted on social media, Kent stated that “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.”

Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent’s resignation letter raises a question that’s going to become increasingly important in the coming months and years: How do we talk about Israel’s undeniable role in pushing the United States into a catastrophic war without either letting Washington, and President Donald Trump himself, off the hook or slipping into the spreading morass of antisemitism?

When it comes to the war in Iran, Kent has reaffirmed what we already knew. In his letter, which he posted on social media, Kent stated that “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.”

The first part of Kent’s assertion should not be controversial. The Trump administration has offered no evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat (that is, other than Israel’s determination to attack Iran). Officials have barely bothered to try to make the argument beyond occasional servings of word salad about a nuclear weapons program that Iran doesn’t have, or claiming that Iran actually has been at war with the United States since 1979 and Washington is only now really responding, or just that Trump’s Spidey sense was tingling. It’s incoherent and ridiculous.

The second element in Kent’s initial........

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