Joe Kent vs. Iran’s Imminent Threat
Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has succinctly captured the problem.
Over there at Fox News is this from Rep. Massie on the much-ballyhooed resignation of Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center: “Said Massie of the Kent resignation: ‘Another insider sees what we see: no imminent threat, just lobby pressure. This is why we need to defund and debate.’”
No “imminent threat” from the Iranian war machine? Seriously?
One wonders whether Massie has done any studying of history.
Over there at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs is this from Center President Dr. Dan Diker and Tirza Shorr, a senior researcher and program coordinator at the Center. The title: “Understanding Iran’s Imminent Threat to America,” with the subtitle, “A 47-year record of attacks, nuclear brinkmanship, and explicit threats reveals why ‘imminence’ can no longer be measured by outdated standards.”
In this very perceptive piece, Diker and Shorr say, among other things, this, with bold print for emphasis supplied:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its global proxy network have killed more than 1,000 Americans since 1979. Iranian-backed forces conducted over 180 attacks on U.S. military bases in 2023–2024 alone. Iran’s stockpile of 440 kilograms of 60% highly enriched uranium reached a one-week breakout threshold for nuclear weapons before the June 2025 strikes. And just eleven days before Operation Epic Fury commenced, Iran’s Supreme Leader publicly threatened to send U.S. warships to the bottom of the sea. The question is not whether Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. The question is why it took 47 years to respond to its longstanding threats.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who headed the CIA in the 1990s, determined that the Iranian nuclear program has constituted an imminent threat: “If their policy is to go to the threshold but not assemble a nuclear weapon, how do you tell that they have not assembled? I don’t actually know how you would verify that.” By the time the United States knows with certainty that Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold, it may be too late to act.
Former Secretary Gates has it exactly right. And even more to the point, Massie saying that he sees “no imminent threat, just lobby pressure” reminds me of all those pre-World War II Americans who insisted that the on-the-march, decidedly war-minded Japanese empire crossing the Pacific and the advances of the similarly inclined war-loving Hitler in not-so-subtly threatening various European countries were just one big no big deal. Nothing “imminent” to see there! (RELATED: If FDR Had Killed Hitler?)
Until, of course, the Nazis swarmed across the Polish border in 1939 and the Japanese swarmed down on Pearl Harbor at dawn of Dec. 7, 1941.
Suddenly, “imminent” was an irrelevant description of what was actually happening.
Diker and Shorr, correctly labeling Iran as “An Actively Hostile State,” also note the decidedly vivid “Evidence of the Iranian Regime’s Imminent Threat: 47 Years of Attacks on Americans.” They go on to list the evidence. Some specifics:
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In November 1979, regime-backed operatives seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.
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In April 1983, an Iran-backed suicide bombing killed 17 Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
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In October 1983, Iran’s Hezbollah proxy killed 241 U.S. servicemen in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut — the deadliest single attack on American military personnel since World War II.
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In 1984, CIA Station Chief William Buckley was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Hezbollah.
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In 1985, a U.S. Navy diver was killed in the TWA Flight 847 hijacking.
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In 1989, U.S. Marine Colonel William Higgins was executed by Hezbollah.
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In June 1996, 19 Americans were killed in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, carried out by IRGC-backed Hezbollah al-Hijaz.
And on goes the list of decidedly specific acts of war perpetuated by the Iranian Islamic state against Americans. Acts that continued through the 1990’s and into the 21st century.
To suggest that all of these quite decided acts of war perpetuated by Iran against America and Americans across the last 47 years is not a sign of anything “imminent” is, to say the least, utterly laughable.
The question, of course, is what to finally do about this. President Trump, a serious believer in the Reagan doctrine of “Peace Through Strength”, is not inclined to sit back while Iran goes about the business of building nuclear weapons. And then, after sitting back, suddenly finds out that the Iranians are not afraid to use those weapons – against Israel and America’s European allies. Not to mention against America itself.
The bottom line?
The realization that human beings are always out there who are decidedly capable of the sheerest evil. And ignoring them, pretending that they don’t exist or are not planning anything “imminent” when it comes to using today’s weapons of mass destruction will never work.
And will never work.
Whether Joe Kent believes it or not.
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