Father of two amazing boys, husband. Retired Green Beret combat veteran, Gold Star husband. Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Washington, DC
Joined October 2019
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After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. 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.
It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC.
May God bless America.
Happy Veterans Day! For over 20 years I had the honor of serving our nation alongside the best men and women I have ever known.
I am proud to be a member of the generation that answered our nation’s call after we were attacked on 9/11, which then deployed again, and again, throughout the last two decades.
During war, I witnessed normal Americans perform heroic deeds so frequently it became the standard—while back home, our corrupt political elite enriched themselves as good men and women bled & died.
It became clear, as the lies of the political class under which I served were exposed, that the only way to truly honor our veterans—and our fallen—is to demand that our leaders stop launching our country into foolish wars of choice.
It’s time to chart a new path forward, one that rejects foolish wars & puts America first.
22 years ago the fight for Fallujah began. My ODA & the Iraqi Special Forces helped secure the 1st objective on the west side of the Euphrates.
In this battle we lost 95 Americans. In the Iraq war we lost 4,418 Americans. All of them were patriots who gave their lives for our nation.
Tragically our leaders abused their patriotism & got our best men & women killed in a war based on lies that was not in our national interest.
22 years later we have a choice to make, do we finally learn from our past mistakes & chart a new course, or do we allow our leaders to keep us in this destructive cycle?
We know better, it’s time to chart a new course.
It is critical that everyone understand this: the issue of highly enriched uranium is a goalpost that the neocon & Israeli lobby echo chamber will keep moving until we physically go into Iran to “take it”. The actual goal is to force a ground invasion and/or never-ending air strikes.
Even when we bomb & obliterate all of Iran’s HEU, as we did w/Op midnight hammer, the lobby insists we have to go get the “nuclear dust,” creating the circumstances for more strikes and/or that prized boots-on-the-ground op.
The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon. The entire premise of chasing “nuclear dust” was—and remains—bait to draw us into Israel’s war.
Fuck, we have a new problem. The Neocons have a new pitch to Trump: 'The only way to fix the damage the Iran war has done to your legacy is to force them to give up their highly enriched uranium.'
They're spamming him with this stupid new idea, undermining Vance's efforts to reach a diplomatic solution
What they leave out of their pitch is that Iran will NEVER give up their uranium to Trump, as it's their only bargaining chip, and giving it up is an irreversible step, while Trump's conscessions (lifting the blockade and sanctions) are easily reversible
And needless to say, the Iranians do not trust Trump, or the U.S.
Yes Mark, the Israeli lobby won the argument with their lies & led us into this war.
Last Tuesday the American people expressed their rage at this foolish war & voted for us to get out of it.
It’s time to tune out the lobbyists & listen to the American people & end the war.
Secretary Rubio on April 1, 2026:
“We were on the verge of an Iran that had so many missiles and so many drones that no one could do anything about their nuclear weapons program in the future.”
Rubio called that prospect:
“An intolerable risk.”
He argued Iran could not be permitted to protect its nuclear ambitions behind an overwhelming arsenal of conventional weapons. realclearpolitics.com/video/…
The debate to either maintain the blockade or escalate the war via renewed air strikes (aka the proposed “Mini Epic Fury”) is an illusion of choice—both options push us back into an unwinnable war with Iran.
The Iranians are not going to accept being throttled by more sanctions, they’ve made that clear. They watched as we deployed this strategy against Iraq from 1991 until our eventual invasion in 2003, and they’re not going to wait around to suffer the same fate.
Enforcing the blockade keeps our troops in harm’s way & risks a shoot down that would inevitably launch us back into kinetic war—yet another avenue for CENTCOM to force policy by CONOP: turning escort ops into movement-to-contact ops until we’re shot at & get sucked back into major combat operations.
Walking away is what the American people voted for, and it’s the President’s best legitimate option to get out of this mess. He needs to act fast before it’s no longer an option at all.
This is CENTCOM inviting Iran to escalate while the Vice President is attempting to negotiate with the Iranians. This is, as CENTCOM calls it, “policy by CONOP,” when the military finds a way to subvert the White House without blatantly disobeying the President, by taking actions that will ensure a war escalates or perpetuates.
This tactic was implemented over & over again in the War on Terror in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. Many Americans died, needlessly.
The Iranians have made it clear that they won’t accept negotiations while under threat of escalation. Iranian leadership has stated there will either be war or there will be peace, but they will not sit idly by and wait for the next attack & they won’t tolerate being slowly strangled by sanctions.
Imposing more sanctions, & publicly broadcasting that we’re imposing more sanctions, is brash provocation.
The midterm results sent a message that the President should find impossible to ignore: the American people do not support this war. We want out. The VP is currently in negotiations to end it, & a new Chief of Staff was chosen under the auspices of helping the President do just that.
CENTCOM announcing this escalation is the military working directly against what President Trump is attempting to accomplish. If the President had any desire to escalate, he’d simply do it. Instead, thankfully it appears he is attempting more diplomacy, and CENTCOM must support that.
It’s become abundantly clear that the President needs to install a new national security team, one that’s not tied to starting the war and that can instead end it. To do that, he needs people who can & will get the national security state under control, not submit to it.
The “intelligence” that Kennedy is referring to are Israeli talking points pushed by Israeli lobbyists like Dubowitz.
In the lead up to the war Israeli gov officials & lobbyists were pushing this nonsense but there was zero actual intel to support these outlandish claims.
This is CENTCOM inviting Iran to escalate while the Vice President is attempting to negotiate with the Iranians. This is, as CENTCOM calls it, “policy by CONOP,” when the military finds a way to subvert the White House without blatantly disobeying the President, by taking actions that will ensure a war escalates or perpetuates.
This tactic was implemented over & over again in the War on Terror in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. Many Americans died, needlessly.
The Iranians have made it clear that they won’t accept negotiations while under threat of escalation. Iranian leadership has stated there will either be war or there will be peace, but they will not sit idly by and wait for the next attack & they won’t tolerate being slowly strangled by sanctions.
Imposing more sanctions, & publicly broadcasting that we’re imposing more sanctions, is brash provocation.
The midterm results sent a message that the President should find impossible to ignore: the American people do not support this war. We want out. The VP is currently in negotiations to end it, & a new Chief of Staff was chosen under the auspices of helping the President do just that.
CENTCOM announcing this escalation is the military working directly against what President Trump is attempting to accomplish. If the President had any desire to escalate, he’d simply do it. Instead, thankfully it appears he is attempting more diplomacy, and CENTCOM must support that.
It’s become abundantly clear that the President needs to install a new national security team, one that’s not tied to starting the war and that can instead end it. To do that, he needs people who can & will get the national security state under control, not submit to it.
Trump faces catastrophic consequences’ in Iran — @BrettErickson28 & I discuss his way out: youtu.be/TLtvWapDAwY?is=6p9_… via @YouTube
End the war, fire those who enabled it.
Restrain Israel & put America 1st.
We have less than 2 years to change course. President Trump needs to make some drastic changes.
The time to act is now.
I explain how @RStatecraft:
responsiblestatecraft.org/tr…
The neocons & those who prioritize Israel over America don’t have a significant enough constituency to win on their own. Yesterday proved that.
Letting them dictate our foreign policy is the vehicle by which we destroy our coalition & hand a victory to the democrats.
The ideals of the 2024 MAGA movement—which were mandated by 77 million Americans—are solid. These ideals can win in ‘28, we just need leaders the people can trust will fulfill their promises.
All efforts must be on ending the war, not pushing more foolish escalation. The sanctions have not worked for over 40 yrs, they won’t work now & will only harm negotiations & provoke Iran.
Listen to the American people, not the Israeli lobby.
End the war.
Last night was a referendum on the Iran war. The American people have emphatically rejected it, and the results at the polls confirmed what we’ve been warning about for months.
President Trump needs to understand that he still has the option to course correct on Iran. End the war now. Walk away, and commit the rest of his term to improving the lives of the American people.
Trump still has the power to do the right thing. He can still avert the disaster of a catastrophic escalation. He needs to focus on taking care of his fellow Americans if he has any hope in salvaging his legacy.
End the war. Put the American people first.
In publicly stating that he’s cutting off aid to Israel, President Trump is attempting to set a narrative: whatever action Israel takes against Iran has nothing to do with the U.S. It gives us a political “out” if Israel targets civilian infrastructure or uses a nuclear weapon on Iran.
Unfortunately, Iran will not see it this way. Just as they’ve hit us when Israel has initiated attacks in the past, Iran will retaliate against us & our gulf partners if Israel engages in further acts of aggression.
The reality is that it’s going take more than a public statement to meaningfully restrain Israel, especially when that statement highlights the still-heavy influence Netanyahu has on these decisions.
Bibi, Israeli officials, & their American surrogates have known for some time now that the days of unconditional support from the U.S. are reaching an end, and have resorted to misdirection: get everyone focused on Trump ending the cash funding & weaponry provisions, while in the background shifting their own efforts to push the far more lucrative— but harder to detect— “partnership” that’s on the cusp of being codified into law within the NDAA.
If POTUS is genuinely serious about cutting off aid to Israel, he must demand that Congress remove all proposed programs that will give the Israeli defense & intelligence apparatuses unfettered access to our own defense & intelligence R&D.
Protect American interests, put Americans first.
Escalating the Iran war risks disastrous consequences for very little gain. Ending the war is President Trump’s best option.
@BrettErickson28 & I make the case in the Hill:
thehill.com/opinion/national…
Bush’s presidency will be forever defined by the catastrophic Iraq war. Had Bush declared victory & left Iraq at the eight month mark, he could have forged a legacy of greatness, not failure and spilled blood & wasted treasure.
Something for POTUS @realDonaldTrump to consider.
Better yet, recall his own advice to Bush from 2007, once Iraq had descended into chaos.
The Walk Away option:
The President can avoid another round of diplomatic frustrations and dangerous escalation by simply declaring victory and walking away. President Trump has already laid the groundwork for this scenario; each time he’s discussed the war and listed off the number of Iranian capabilities we’ve destroyed, he’s messaging a win.
Per his own statements, the war ends when Trump says it’s over.
Now is the perfect time for him to say it’s over.
By pulling our blockade from the Gulf & our troops out of our remaining bases in the region, we end the conflict kinetically while simultaneously (finally) depriving Iran a key point of leverage: actionable military targets to strike. We essentially force Iran to reopen the SOH because they can no longer reasonably justify attacking ships without an active aggressor to blame.
The Iranians have demonstrated that they care deeply about public opinion—therefore, once we lift the blockade, they’re likely to engage in serious talks with the Gulf states to come up with an arrangement that quickly opens the SOH.
We then use economic leverage to our advantage: we offer incremental sanctions relief on Iranian oil to make opening SOH a non-negotiable for the Iranians. While President Trump takes a victory lap about having ended the war & ensuring that Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon, our diplomats can quietly work with our Gulf allies and the Iranians to negotiate a workable peace plan that ensures the SOH stays open.
Right now Iranian leaders are unable to make many concessions with the U.S. threatening another round of strikes.
The Iranian people rallied around the hardliners in their government after we killed the former supreme leader & members of his family including children, and the tragic bombing of a girl’s school. If you understand basic human nature, you’ll understand why all of this has had a radicalizing effect on their population. Now, many Iranians believe that the only acceptable path forward, for the sake of their national pride and to deter future attacks, is by forcing a badly blooded U.S. retreat from the region.
Our walking away from the conflict will provide Iranian leadership a symbolic victory they can tout to their now-galvanized people, allowing more latitude for them to eventually reach a compromise with us on bigger items, like the nuclear issue. By walking away, we buy more trade space for compromise in future negotiations that won’t be possible if we remain poised to strike Iran.
At the moment, Trump has the political power in the U.S. to sell walking away as a victory to his base. Of course, the same neocons who talked him into this war will complain and attack him, but they don’t represent a legitimate constituency.
This war is widely unpopular—ending it will be widely popular. In the long run, history will commend Trump for choosing this option.
In recognizing that the war was a mistake, and by leaving quickly before getting bogged down in a quagmire, he avoids falling into the gambler’s fallacy that ensnared many of his predecessors and got thousands of Americans killed.
The Walk Away option:
The President can avoid another round of diplomatic frustrations and dangerous escalation by simply declaring victory and walking away. President Trump has already laid the groundwork for this scenario; each time he’s discussed the war and listed off the number of Iranian capabilities we’ve destroyed, he’s messaging a win.
Per his own statements, the war ends when Trump says it’s over.
Now is the perfect time for him to say it’s over.
By pulling our blockade from the Gulf & our troops out of our remaining bases in the region, we end the conflict kinetically while simultaneously (finally) depriving Iran a key point of leverage: actionable military targets to strike. We essentially force Iran to reopen the SOH because they can no longer reasonably justify attacking ships without an active aggressor to blame.
The Iranians have demonstrated that they care deeply about public opinion—therefore, once we lift the blockade, they’re likely to engage in serious talks with the Gulf states to come up with an arrangement that quickly opens the SOH.
We then use economic leverage to our advantage: we offer incremental sanctions relief on Iranian oil to make opening SOH a non-negotiable for the Iranians. While President Trump takes a victory lap about having ended the war & ensuring that Iran won’t have a nuclear weapon, our diplomats can quietly work with our Gulf allies and the Iranians to negotiate a workable peace plan that ensures the SOH stays open.
Right now Iranian leaders are unable to make many concessions with the U.S. threatening another round of strikes.
The Iranian people rallied around the hardliners in their government after we killed the former supreme leader & members of his family including children, and the tragic bombing of a girl’s school. If you understand basic human nature, you’ll understand why all of this has had a radicalizing effect on their population. Now, many Iranians believe that the only acceptable path forward, for the sake of their national pride and to deter future attacks, is by forcing a badly blooded U.S. retreat from the region.
Our walking away from the conflict will provide Iranian leadership a symbolic victory they can tout to their now-galvanized people, allowing more latitude for them to eventually reach a compromise with us on bigger items, like the nuclear issue. By walking away, we buy more trade space for compromise in future negotiations that won’t be possible if we remain poised to strike Iran.
At the moment, Trump has the political power in the U.S. to sell walking away as a victory to his base. Of course, the same neocons who talked him into this war will complain and attack him, but they don’t represent a legitimate constituency.
This war is widely unpopular—ending it will be widely popular. In the long run, history will commend Trump for choosing this option.
In recognizing that the war was a mistake, and by leaving quickly before getting bogged down in a quagmire, he avoids falling into the gambler’s fallacy that ensnared many of his predecessors and got thousands of Americans killed.
There is no such thing as a short, 3-4 day military operation—if we strike Iran, they will respond. We have consistently underestimated the most basic reality: the enemy gets a vote.
There is no military option that will persuade Iran to accept the U.S.’s terms for a deal—after 8 months of failing to restore order to the chaos it caused, the administration knows this— so what is the purpose of more strikes?
If we strike Iran by targeting more of their leaders and/or energy infrastructure, Iran will retaliate by striking Gulf energy infrastructure & U.S. forces in the region. More American troops will needlessly die, & our energy prices will continue to skyrocket.
Iran’s allies & proxies—like the Houthis, Iraqi militias, & possibly Bahraini groups—will attack Saudi energy infrastructure, the BAM/Suez, & will potentially attack the governments of Kuwait & Bahrain. We’re already unable to help the Saudis deter the Houthis—if we engage in kinetic combat against Iran, we’ll be even more incapable of assisting our already-weakened allies.
More strikes won’t change the game. Walking away & declaring victory before Tuesday sets a positive tone for the elections & resets the parameters for negotiations with Iran.
President Trump can avoid the escalation trap by walking away now, before the fog of war envelops the rest of his presidency.
There is no such thing as a short, 3-4 day military operation—if we strike Iran, they will respond. We have consistently underestimated the most basic reality: the enemy gets a vote.
There is no military option that will persuade Iran to accept the U.S.’s terms for a deal—after 8 months of failing to restore order to the chaos it caused, the administration knows this— so what is the purpose of more strikes?
If we strike Iran by targeting more of their leaders and/or energy infrastructure, Iran will retaliate by striking Gulf energy infrastructure & U.S. forces in the region. More American troops will needlessly die, & our energy prices will continue to skyrocket.
Iran’s allies & proxies—like the Houthis, Iraqi militias, & possibly Bahraini groups—will attack Saudi energy infrastructure, the BAM/Suez, & will potentially attack the governments of Kuwait & Bahrain. We’re already unable to help the Saudis deter the Houthis—if we engage in kinetic combat against Iran, we’ll be even more incapable of assisting our already-weakened allies.
More strikes won’t change the game. Walking away & declaring victory before Tuesday sets a positive tone for the elections & resets the parameters for negotiations with Iran.
President Trump can avoid the escalation trap by walking away now, before the fog of war envelops the rest of his presidency.
Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon was nothing more than Bibi’s sales pitch to get us into the war.
This obvious reality is a punchline in Israel.
Time to end our public humiliation.
End the war.
End our lopsided relationship with Israel.
