WASHINGTON — Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned Tuesday — wildly claiming in his resignation letter that President Trump was duped into launching the war against Iran by Israel and media figures.

Kent, an Army veteran and two-time Republican congressional candidate, posted his resignation letter on X, writing: “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,” Kent wrote.

Kent, whose wife Shannon died in a Jan. 16, 2019, ISIS suicide bombing while stationed in Syria, was well-liked by Vice President JD Vance and was one of the most prominent members of the war-wary faction of Trump’s base.

Before entering the Trump administration, Kent built a national following through widely watched interviews with fellow anti-interventionists Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson — before serving as a key deputy to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, another long-time skeptic of Mideast wars.

Trump called Kent’s departure “a good thing.”

“I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Carlson, a booster of Kent’s earlier congressional bids and his friend, praised Kent’s principles.

“Joe is the bravest man I know, and he can’t be dismissed as a nut,” Carlson told the New York Times. “He’s leaving a job that gave him access to highest-level relevant intelligence. The neocons will now try to destroy him for that. He understands that and did it anyway.”

His resignation brought mixed reactions inside the White House. One source close to the Trump administration claimed “most people” were “saying good riddance.”

However, an administration official told The Post that Kent is respected as “a patriot and a man of integrity who has sacrificed immensely for this country.”

“He is also no dove when it comes to Iran,” the official said. “During his time in the military and intelligence community, he was responsible for the deaths of numerous [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] operatives and Iranian proxies. I am certain he did not take this action lightly.”

In the resignation letter itself, Kent accused Trump of abandoning the values of his three White House campaigns and urged him to end the war.

“I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term,” he wrote. “Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.

“In your first administration, you understood better than any modern president how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS.

“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” Kent went on.

“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that, should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.”

Israel has long viewed Iran as its top threat — so much so that it reportedly urged then-President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq in 2003 to topple dictator Saddam Hussein, whose own nuclear ambitions had been smashed by the Jewish state in 1981 airstrikes.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said in 2007 that “the Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy — Iran is the enemy” and that “if you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy.”

Trump shrugged off Kent’s departure.

“When I read the statement, I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out, because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while hosting Irish leader Micheál Martin on St. Patrick’s Day.

The president added: “When somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran was a threat, we don’t want those people … They’re not smart people, or they’re not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a lengthy statement accusing Kent of making “false claims” in his resignation letter.

Leavitt wrote that Trump had deployed “his top negotiators” in an effort to avoid war, but “had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”

She also blasted “the absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries,” calling it “both insulting and laughable.”

Gabbard made clear Tuesday that she supports Trump’s decision to launch the ongoing Iran war — after her deputy resigned and accused the president of being manipulated by Israel.

Her office “is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions,” Gabbard said. “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.”

Another broadside came from former White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, who wrote on X: “Joe Kent is a crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks, while rarely (never?) producing any actual work.”

“This isn’t some principled resignation,” Budowich added, “he just wanted to make a splash before getting canned. What a loser.”

Kent submitted his resignation one day after Vance himself called for critics of the Iran war to reserve judgment. 

“We have a smart president, whereas in the past, we’ve had dumb presidents,” Vance said Monday. “I trust President Trump can get the job done… and to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated.”

Trump has argued that Operation Epic Fury, launched on Feb. 28, will last only a matter of weeks following the degradation of Iran’s nuclear program and military capability.

Oil prices spiked as high as $106 per barrel this week —  up about 50% from a month ago — due to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, an impasse that administration officials admit could last for weeks as Trump deploys thousands of additional Marines to the region.