[政治] 5分钟阅读
特朗普任命的乔·肯特因伊朗战争辞职的意义
分析：
[Aaron Blake]
更新于3小时前
更新于2026年3月17日，美国东部时间下午4:51
发布于2026年3月17日，美国东部时间下午4:39
唐纳德·特朗普 中东 国会新闻 1月6日
[查看所有主题]
Facebook 推文[电子邮件]链接 话题
链接已复制！
乔·肯特于2025年12月11日在众议院国土安全委员会作证。
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
周二，保守派内部关于伊朗战争的辩论进入新阶段，首位特朗普任命的知名人士因批评这场战争而辞职。
国家反恐中心主任乔·肯特在辞职信中表示，他无法“凭良心支持正在进行的伊朗战争”。肯特暗示，政府谎称伊朗构成“迫在眉睫”的威胁，并声称以色列诱使美国卷入了一场“既不符合美国人民利益，也不能证明美国生命代价合理”的战争。
总统唐纳德·特朗普回应称，肯特“在安全问题上非常软弱”，并表示“他离开是件好事”。
广告反馈
那么这一辞职有多重要？
肯特是一个有诸多争议的信使，其过去经历坎坷，包括他竞选美国众议院失败的经历。此外，他在辞职信中大量聚焦以色列问题，这应该引发对其观点来源的警惕。
与此同时，他是一名退役陆军绿色贝雷帽成员，特朗普认为他适合担任一个高调的情报职位。随着右翼势力在经历二十多年来美国首次重大新战争的挣扎，肯特可能代表了特朗普阵营中对这场战争并非完全支持的一部分人，尤其是当战争持续时间越长时。
肯特是否是一位道德楷模，他的辞职信能与过去多年来伟大的原则性辞职相提并论——比如1980年因抗议吉米·卡特试图营救被伊朗扣押的美国人质行动失败而辞职的国务卿赛勒斯·万斯？
不。但他的举动确实向特朗普发出了一些潜在问题的信号。
肯特是一个复杂的信使
据美国有线电视新闻网KFile此前报道，肯特曾是一名众议院候选人，其与白人至上主义者的联系包括接受纳粹同情者的采访。尽管他试图让自己的竞选活动远离极端分子，但这些关联可能损害了他在2022年和2024年赢得华盛顿州摇摆席位的努力。
肯特还宣扬阴谋论，包括声称他后来任职的情报机构参与策划或指挥了2021年1月6日对美国国会大厦的袭击。尽管北卡罗来纳州共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯投了反对票，他还是在7月获得了职位确认。
共和党候选人乔·肯特在俄勒冈州波特兰市与民主党众议员玛丽·格吕森坎普·佩雷斯的国会选举辩论中，2024年10月。
Jenny Kane/AP/档案
周二，肯特的辞职信因多次提及以色列而引起了不少关注。
肯特称以色列“施压”美国发动伊朗战争。这一说法在国务卿马尔科·卢比奥早期的评论中并不显得荒谬。（在美国首次发动打击后，卢比奥称伊朗构成迫在眉睫的威胁，因为以色列将对其发动打击，而德黑兰将报复性打击美国目标。政府后来放弃了这一理由版本。）
但肯特并未就此止步。他在信中还提到以色列“强大的美国游说团体”。他指责“以色列高级官员”就伊朗构成的威胁进行“虚假信息宣传”。他将美国卷入伊拉克战争归咎于以色列。他还称叙利亚内战（他的妻子2019年在这场战争中丧生）是“以色列制造的战争”。
换句话说，这听起来很像你现在可能从福克斯新闻前主持人塔克·卡尔森那里听到的言论。
但这也是问题所在。肯特的观点可能反映了特朗普阵营中更广泛的情绪。反以色列观点——以及反犹主义——似乎正在上升，尤其是在年轻一代和网红阶层中，这可能削弱右翼对战争的支持。
共和党对战争的支持有其局限性
目前的普遍看法是，尽管一些直言不讳的保守派对战争表示犹豫，但右翼整体上与特朗普保持一致。
但这并非全部情况。事实上，美国有线电视新闻网在战争初期的民调显示，23%的共和党人不赞成采取军事行动的决定。此外，根据美国有线电视新闻网和其他机构的民调，共和党人的支持相当微弱（即许多共和党人表示支持战争，但并非“强烈支持”）。这表明随着战争成本的增加，人们的保留意见可能会增加。
甚至特朗普自己的副总统JD·万斯也明显不愿完全支持这场战争。
3月15日，人们在伊朗德黑兰的袭击现场行走。
Majid Asgaripour/Wana新闻社/路透社
肯特的辞职信紧随一些著名右翼网红之后，这些网红毫不掩饰地反对这场战争（并常常同时批评以色列）——包括卡尔森以及前众议员玛乔丽·泰勒·格林、前福克斯主持人梅根·凯利等人。
这是我们从未真正见过的一种动态——甚至可能在杰弗里·爱泼斯坦事件（当时的批评更多是针对特朗普政府而非他个人）中也未曾出现过。这些网红可以为其他人提供表达类似立场的许可。精英阶层的观点可以渗透到基层。
肯特凸显了政府为战争辩护的困境
肯特的信还指出了政府面临的一个非常现实且持续存在的问题：其战争理由。无论你如何看待肯特或他的理由，政府确实在努力解释为何伊朗构成“迫在眉睫”的威胁。
在尝试了几种可能的理由后，政府最终似乎采用了特朗普认为伊朗将打击美国的说法——尽管没有已知的情报支持这一点。
右翼势力并未过多关注这些细节。但缺乏明确的理由仍然是政府战争理由中的一个巨大漏洞，这可能会成为美国选民的问题，尤其是当他们开始关注这一问题时。
现在的问题是，肯特的举动是否预示着其他人会做出类似决定。国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德（她多年来一直警告不要对伊朗开战）是否会效仿？（肯特在特朗普第二任期早期曾在加巴德手下工作。）
国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德在2025年12月2日的内阁会议上。
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/法新社/盖蒂图片社
加巴德周二下午在X平台（原推特）上发表评论称，确定伊朗是否构成迫在眉睫的威胁是特朗普的职责——但她并未明确表达自己的观点。
“在仔细审查了所有相关信息后，特朗普总统得出结论认为，伊朗的恐怖伊斯兰政权构成了迫在眉睫的威胁，并基于这一结论采取了行动，”加巴德写道。
我们不应期望特朗普的核心支持者大规模辞职或叛离。肯特在MAGA运动中并非那么有影响力。
但特朗普正在一点一点地失去他的核心支持者。无论你如何看待肯特或他的动机，他的辞职都是这场持续的政治动荡中的一个重要事件。
唐纳德·特朗普 中东 国会新闻 1月6日
[查看所有主题]
Facebook 推文[电子邮件]链接 话题
链接已复制！
广告反馈
The significance of Trump appointee Joe Kent resigning over the Iran war | CNN Politics
[Politics]5 min read
The significance of Trump appointee Joe Kent resigning over the Iran war
Analysis by
[Aaron Blake]
Updated 3 hr ago
Updated Mar 17, 2026, 4:51 PM ET
PUBLISHED Mar 17, 2026, 4:39 PM ET
Donald Trump The Middle East Congressional news January 6th
[See all topics]
Facebook Tweet[Email]Link Threads
Link Copied!
Joe Kent testifies before the House Committee on Homeland Security on December 11, 2025.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The conservative movement’s internal debate over the Iran war entered a new phase on Tuesday, with the first resignation of a prominent Trump appointee who criticized the war.
In his resignation letter, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent said he could not “in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.” Kent implied that the administration had lied about Iran posing an “imminent” threat, and he claimed Israel had lured the United States into a war that “serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.”
President Donald Trump responded by calling Kent “very weak on security” and said it was a “good thing that he’s out.”
Ad Feedback
So just how significant is this?
Kent is a highly imperfect messenger with a checkered past dating back to his failed campaigns for the US House. And that, combined with his extensive focus on Israel in his resignation letter, should trigger some alarms about precisely where his views are coming from.
At the same time, this is a retired Army Green Beret whom Trump saw fit to put in a high-profile intelligence job. And as the right wrestles with the United States’ first major new war in more than two decades, Kent may represent a portion of Trump’s coalition that is not totally on board with the war, especially the longer it drags on.
Is Kent a paragon of virtue whose letter is on-par with the great principled resignations of years past — people like Cyrus Vance, who in 1980 resigned as secretary of state in protest of Jimmy Carter’s ill-fated attempted rescue of American hostages in Iran?
No. But his move does signal some potential problems for Trump.
Kent is a complicated messenger
Kent is a former House candidate whose ties to White nationalists included giving an interview to a a Nazi sympathizer, CNN’s KFile previously reported. And while he tried to distance his campaigns from extremists, those associations may have hurt his efforts to win a swing seat in Washington state in both 2022 and 2024.
Kent has also promoted conspiracy theories, including that the intelligence community in which he would later serve was involved in planning or directing the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. He was confirmed to his role in July despite losing the vote of Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Republican candidate Joe Kent, during a congressional election debate against Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, in Portland, Oregon, in October 2024.
Jenny Kane/AP/File
Kent’s resignation letter Tuesday also turned more than a few heads for how often it invoked Israel.
Kent said that Israel “pressured” the United States into the Iran war. That’s a claim that isn’t exactly ridiculous next to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s early commentary. (After the US first struck, Rubio said Iran posed an imminent threat because Israel was going to strike it, and Tehran would have retaliated by striking US targets. The administration later backed away from that version of its justification.)
But Kent didn’t stop there. He also cited Israel’s “powerful American lobby” in his letter. He blamed “high-ranking Israeli officials” for “a misinformation campaign” about the threat posed by Iran. He blamed Israel for drawing the United States into the Iraq war. And he also called the Syrian civil war (in which his wife died in 2019) “a war manufactured by Israel.”
In other words, it sounded a lot like the kinds of things you might hear from former Fox News host Tucker Carlson these days.
But that’s also kind of the point. Kent’s perspective may be reflective of a broader sentiment within the Trump coalition. Anti-Israel views — and antisemitism — appear to be on the rise, particularly with the younger generation and the influencer class, which could dampen support on the right for the war.
GOP support for the war has its limits
The conventional wisdom right now is that, despite some outspoken conservatives expressing hesitation about the war, the right is in lockstep with Trump.
But that’s not the full picture. In fact, CNN’s poll early in the war showed 23% of Republicans disapproved of the decision to take military action. And much of the GOP support has been rather soft, in CNN’s and others’ polls (i.e., many Republicans said they supported the war, but not “strongly”). That suggests reservations could grow as costs of the war grow.
Even Trump’s own vice president, JD Vance, has conspicuously declined to fully endorse the war.
People walk at the site of a strike in Tehran, Iran, on March 15.
Majid Asgaripour/Wana News Agency/Reuters
Kent’s resignation letter follows in the footsteps of some prominent right-wing influencers who have been unapologetically opposed to the war (and often joined that with criticism of Israel) — people like not just Carlson but former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Fox host Megyn Kelly and others.
It’s a dynamic we haven’t really seen before — arguably not even with the Jeffrey Epstein files (where the criticism was more of Trump’s administration than him personally). And those influencers can give others the permission structure to take similar positions. Elite opinion can filter down to the base.
Kent highlights administration’s struggle to justify the war
Kent’s letter also points to a very real, ongoing problem for the administration: its justification for war. Whatever you think of Kent or his rationale, the administration has struggled mightily to explain why Iran posed an “imminent” threat.
After cycling through a few possible justifications, the administration eventually seemed to settle on the narrative that Trump felt Iran was going to strike the United States — despite there being no known intelligence that backed that up.
The right hasn’t concerned itself too much with those kinds of details. But the lack of a clear justification remains a gaping hole in the administration’s case for war that could seemingly become a problem for American voters, to the extent they start paying attention to it.
The question now is whether Kent’s move might presage others making similar decisions. Could Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has spent years warning against war with Iran, follow suit? (Kent worked under Gabbard early in Trump’s second administration.)
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attends a Cabinet meeting on December 2, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
Gabbard weighed in Tuesday afternoon on X, saying it was Trump’s job to determine whether Iran posed an imminent threat — but she notably didn’t give her view on that question.
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” Gabbard wrote.
We shouldn’t expect large-scale resignations or desertions of Trump from his base. Kent just isn’t that powerful a figure in the MAGA movement.
But Trump is losing his base a little bit at a time. And Kent is a significant entry in that ongoing saga, no matter what you think of him or his reasons.
Donald Trump The Middle East Congressional news January 6th
[See all topics]
Facebook Tweet[Email]Link Threads
Link Copied!
Ad Feedback
