Trumps senior counter terrorism officer resigns due to the war with Iran and has said they only went to war because of Israeli pressure, not because of any imminent threat from Iran.

[BerthaPotts]

If that is really the case will this not be very damning for Trump? How will he respond to this?

Who is the greek God of chaos? Maybe we can create a Nobel Prize of chaos. Trump is, by far, the winner. Netanyahu can hand it to him.

It is called Chaos or Khaos indeed.
Let's name Trump as the winner, hand it to him and call it a day.

@Twiglets1I’m glad you can see the problem with just ignoring the issue, reading the posts.

So how does this end then?
The article I linked earlier to doesn’t seem to find an easy answer to it.

If the threat was 10 years plus in coming into fruition, then there would have been time to relook at how a diplomatic solution could have worked. There are sources that say significant inroads were being made.

No-one has said that the issue should be ignored.

For the purposes of the original post, it does not matter that there are posters who believe that 10 years is imminent, it would what the U.S. intelligence agencies thought. As already posted- they appear to have thought 10 years did not equal imminent.

The second part of the suggestion was the war was done due to pressure by Israel. Rubio did initially suggest that.

So no matter what people may think about Joe Kent- he may have been right.

The problem is waiting to get closer to the end of that timing doesn’t make things easier, but harder.

The Cheif Diplomat of Oman Badr Albusaidi (who was closely involved in the recent talks between America and Iran) wrote an Op-ed for the Economist, stating:

“America has lost control of its own foreign policy,” and Washington’s allies should help extricate it “from this unwanted entanglement”.

......Albusaidi blamed “Israel’s leadership” for persuading Trump to join the war on the false basis that Iran’s regime would offer an “unconditional surrender” after the assassination of its supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
“The American administration’s greatest miscalculation, of course, was allowing itself to be drawn into this war in the first place,” he wrote. “This is not America’s war, and there is no likely scenario in which both Israel and America will get what they want from it.”

Guardian link as original article behind a paywall

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/19/us-lost-control-of-its-own-foreign-policy-oman-foreign-minister

Surprisingly, the Britain's national security advisor, who attended the last talks in Geneva confirmed that Iran had offered significant concessions and that a deal was on the table. It may explain Starmer's reluctance to help Trump:

"UK officials have subsequently explained they were impressed that Iran was prepared for the deal to be permanent and, unlike the 2015 nuclear agreement, would not have cut-off dates, or sunset clauses ending the restrictions on its programme.

Iran had also agreed to down-blend the 440kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium under the supervision of the IAEA inside Iran. It agreed no stockpiles of highly enriched uranium would be built up in the future."

Also notable is this:
"One Gulf diplomat with knowledge of the talks said: “We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/17/uk-security-adviser-attended-us-iran-talks-and-judged-deal-was-within-reach

Diplomatic options were still on the table, this is 100% a war of choice.

Of course, and that is why we would have needed to see that they allowed inspections etc. - whatever experts would have deemed appropriate to monitor the risks.

The post above shows that the Iranians were also willing to make significant concessions.

I would say the 10 year time scale would have also allowed due processes to be followed in terms of getting UN mandate prior attacking Iran.

If we look at the history of US intervention in the ME, Russia benefits, individuals benefit and radical groups like the Ayatollah regime, Taliban and ISIS benefit.

Normal, everyday people lose.
Us, as well as the victims in Iran, Lebanon, the Gulf, Israel, Ukraine and beyond. Even Trump voting, US citizen patriots suffer.😒

I don’t mind discussing the reality of inspections stopping all progress. I’m not sure if they get full access to all sites or there’s an ability to develop out of sight.

Great if that is foolproof, if not though I’m not sure why people aren’t concerned about the potential for how it would end as put in pp being MAD.