Joe Kent vs. Iran’s Imminent Threat; Iran’s 47-year record of active war against America.

 The American Spectator | USA News and Politics

"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record of attacks, nuclear brinkmanship, and explicit threats reveals why ‘imminence’ can no longer be measured by outdated standards.”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! " . . .