US must get troops out of Gulf, former counterterrorism chief says

US must get troops out of Gulf, former counterterrorism chief says Joseph Kent, the former director of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, urged Washington to immediately withdraw troops from the Gulf as Tehran woved to respond to Larak island attack. “We just struck targets on Lark Island, Iran will respond,” Kent said in a social media post. “If we want to control the escalation cycle and not have the war accelerate we must get our troops out of the region. If Iran gets lucky and kills US troops we will be sucked back into the war on Iran’s terms.” Kent resigned from the Trump administration in March in opposition to the US-Israel war on 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,” he wrote in his resignation letter.