Posted originally on Mar 18, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |  

I touched on this story yesterday when the news broke. Listen, when the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigns and publicly states he cannot support a war because there was “no imminent threat,” you are no longer dealing with politics as usual. You are looking at the beginning of a fracture inside the system itself. Joe Kent stepping down is a warning sign that those inside the intelligence community are starting to distance themselves from what they know is being sold to the public as something it is not.

 “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent said. “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.”

I have warned for years that the Neocons never left Washington. They simply change parties, change faces, and reinsert themselves into every administration. It does not matter if it is Republican or Democrat. These people operate behind the curtain and push the same agenda over and over again. Endless war. Regime change. The illusion that the United States can reshape the world at will. We saw this with Iraq. We saw this with Libya. We saw this with Syria. And now we are watching the exact same script play out with Iran.

What is unfolding now is even more dangerous because the people inside the system are beginning to recognize it. When intelligence officials start walking away, it means they know the narrative does not match reality. You cannot claim imminent threat when your own counterterrorism chief is saying the opposite. That is when confidence begins to break, and once confidence breaks, it never unfolds in a neat and controlled fashion.

These wars are sold as quick operations, clean interventions, necessary for national security. I have pointed to Iraq countless times. Cheney said it would take weeks. Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and declared, “Mission accomplished!” That war dragged on for eight years. Thousands of lives lost, trillions spent, and in the end nothing was resolved. Now we are watching the same people, or at least the same ideology, pushing the country down the exact same path again.

The reality is that those who can see what is happening are beginning to step away. They understand that this is not about protecting the United States. This is about geopolitical strategy, influence, and an agenda that has been in motion for decades. The problem is that once these people gain control of policy, they create momentum that is very difficult to stop. When someone in Kent’s position walks away and tells you there was no imminent threat, you should pay attention. That is confirmation that what we are being told and what is actually happening are two very different things.

The most dangerous part is that the public is always the last to know. By the time resignations like this happen, the decision has already been made and the machine is already moving. The Economic Confidence Model has been warning that we are entering a period of rising geopolitical instability into 2027 and beyond. This is exactly how it begins, not with a declaration of world war, but with a series of decisions that escalate step by step until the situation is beyond anyone’s control.