Joe Kent says Washington is treating the current lull as something it controls, when in reality the Iranians could restart the fight at any moment.
His read is that Tehran is debating 2 options:
Slow-bleed the U.S. through a drawn-out blockade fight in the Strait of Hormuz, or let hardliners newly installed in Iran's security apparatus strike back outright as deterrence.
Either way, he argues the economic-pressure campaign the U.S. is leaning on hurts America faster than it hurts Iran, since maintaining a blockade is expensive and Iran only needs "bare minimum" drone and mine activity to keep it disrupted.
Meanwhile CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper is reportedly pushing to resume strikes on Iranian infrastructure alongside Israel, and his closeness with IDF leadership worries Kent. Not because Cooper wants war, but because he'd rather set the next escalation than wait to absorb one.
Kent's actual prescription is for Trump to walk away entirely: end the blockade, stop chasing a deal, and use back-channel pressure instead; sanctions relief and unfreezing assets in exchange for the Strait reopening on comparable terms to other global chokepoints, rather than Iran's current 5–7% shakedown demands.
He believes Iran wants to be seen as a rational regional power, not a pariah, and would only hold the Strait hostage long enough to save face.
But he's blunt that Trump is drifting toward the "easy button" of resuming strikes because he still wants a deal on paper or a military win.
And the political pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, from hawks like Cooper, from a White House unwilling to accept its maximalist demands are dead, is pulling him that direction.
Layered underneath all of it: a growing rupture in U.S.-Israel trust, with leaked doubts about Israeli intelligence and mounting anger over aid and tech-sharing deals just as America's own military readiness and domestic economy erode...
A dynamic he thinks is radicalizing a younger generation against the entire post-WWII narrative of American moral leadership.
Thank you @joekent16jan19 for our conversation
