Former US counterterrorism chief Joe Kent has said that Israel “forced the war” by moving the red line from Iran having no nuclear weapons to enriching no nuclear material.

“POTUS’s (President of the United States) original red line was no nuclear weapon for Iran. The Supreme Leader agreed and held a prohibition on a nuclear weapon since 2004,” Kent has said on X. “The disagreement & debate was on enrichment levels monitoring.”

According to Kent, Israel convinced US President Donald Trump that zero enrichment was the red line, something that the Iranians disagreed on.

“We took out their enrichment capability with Operation Midnight Hammer, making enrichment a dead issue,” he says, referring to US bombing raids on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer.

“Iran was back at the negotiating table afterwards, this was a major threat to Israel’s goal of regime change, so they forced our hand and attacked Iran, knowing Iran would then attack us, plunging us into the war,” Kent adds.