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Former Pentagon official Dan Caldwell – a skeptic of US military intervention, particularly in Iran – has reportedly been hired by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
News of Caldwell’s hiring – reported by multiple outlets – comes the same week one of Gabbard’s top deputies, Joe Kent, resigned in protest of the war in Iran.
Caldwell, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, was as a key adviser to War Secretary Pete Hegseth until last April, when he was put on administrative leave amid a leak investigation. It appears Caldwell has been exonerated in the leak probe.
Caldwell has been an outspoken advocate of restrained foreign policy.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson last June – during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran – Caldwell warned that a “conventional strike” on the Middle Eastern nation by the US would be “potentially catastrophic in lives, dollars, and instability.”
The following month, after President Trump ordered airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, Caldwell argued that while a “nuclear-armed Iran is not ideal, it does not pose an existential threat to the United States.”
“Israel might view the threat posed by a nuclear Iran differently,” the former Pentagon official wrote in an op-ed for Defense Priorities, “but the interests of a US partner — one that itself has nuclear weapons and receives significant U.S. military aid — should not solely drive the US posture in the region.”
Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center under Gabbard, posted his resignation letter on X Monday, 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.
In a probe that predates his departure, the FBI is investigating allegations Kent improperly shared classified information, Semafor reported on Wednesday.
A source familiar with the leak probe confirmed its existence to The Post.
Like Caldwell, Kent was interviewed by Carlson — another Iran war skeptic — after his exit from the Trump administration.
Kent told the conservative commentator that an imminent threat from Islamic regime “simply did not exist” before Trump ordered the Feb. 28 joint attack on Iran.
The former counterterrorism official further claimed “the Israelis drove the decision.”
Kent also alleged the US had “no intelligence” that Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon before the start of Operation Epic Fury.
“No, they weren’t three weeks ago when this started, and they weren’t in June, either,” Kent told Carlson, adding that “there wasn’t a robust debate” within the Trump administration before the decision was made to bomb the US adversary.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
English (US)