Trump Understands Iran Poses An Imminent Threat |
Foreign Policy > Iran
Trump Understands Iran Poses An Imminent Threat
For too long, we have ignored the threat coming from Islam and the Muslim world and, worse, we’ve gotten used to losing. That changes now.
E. Jeffrey Ludwig | March 28, 2026
In a letter posted on X, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent said that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the US and claimed the administration “started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” With his departure, Kent is the most high-profile figure within the Trump administration to publicly criticize the US-Israeli attack on Iran. His parting words sound more like the superficial babblings of commentators like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, whose so-called analyses of our policy are based more on superficial opinion than on historical realities.
It should be noted at the outset of this article that the threat posed by Iran is an ongoing, real-time danger—more than a threat. We have experienced many real attacks by Iran. A recent document published by the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China lists 42 attacks on Americans by Iran between November 1979 and June 2025, causing the deaths of 1,229 Americans and the wounding of hundreds more.
Although this was not a singular event like the Mexicans crossing the Nueces River in the 1840’s to begin the Mexican-American War or the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan in 1941, the sheer number of those who lost their lives and the duration in decades of these attacks should convince anyone that Iran had already been inciting and been acting offensively in a war with the USA for 47 years which we have been downplaying.
We have been in a state of denial and, yes, fear of the Iranians for all this time. We are a superpower, and they have been beating the crap out of........