反恐主任乔·肯特的辞职折射出历届战时总统团队的过往裂痕
2026-04-04 16:02 美国东部时间 / 福克斯新闻
作者：特维·特洛伊 福克斯新闻
美国与德黑兰神职人员政权的战争已进入第二个月，这场战争已在多个重要方面改变了唐纳德·特朗普的总统任期。随着总统思考如何应对这些新变化，不妨回顾一下几位起初并未预料到会成为战时总统的前任总统的经历。
伍德罗·威尔逊通过赢得1912年的三方选举，终结了共和党连续四届的执政优势。他能获胜是因为他的两名对手——前总统泰迪·罗斯福和现任总统威廉·霍华德·塔夫脱——瓜分了共和党选票。
作为总统，威尔逊推行了激进的进步主义国内政策议程。但在他第一任期过半时，欧洲爆发了第一次世界大战，局势就此改变。威尔逊随后在1916年寻求连任，承诺让美国远离战争，甚至打出了“他让我们免于战争”的竞选口号。
但他并未兑现这一承诺，美国在1917年，也就是他第二任期的第一年，正式参战。
为何特朗普与伊朗在结束战争的任何可行协议上都相去甚远
富兰克林·罗斯福1932年当选总统，旨在带领美国经济走出大萧条。在其第三个总统任期内，他获得了新的使命：对抗轴心国，主持美国历史上规模最大的军事动员。罗斯福在1943年的一场新闻发布会上谈及这一转变，解释了从“新政博士”到“赢战博士”的身份切换。罗斯福的这句俏皮话凸显了其政府必须如何重组以应对新挑战。
林登·约翰逊在约翰·肯尼迪遇刺后意外接任总统职位。他上任时国家处于和平时期，并开始推行他的“伟大社会”愿景——一项可与罗斯福新政媲美的全面国内政策议程。
就在他成功通过这项雄心勃勃且耗资巨大的国内政策之际，他和他的政府很快就陷入了越南战争的泥潭。这段经历令人心力交瘁，以至于1968年，这位毕生都在追求总统职位的政治家以拒绝寻求连任的举动震惊了世界。
2000年，乔治·W·布什明确以推行温和外交政策作为竞选纲领，拒绝比尔·克林顿时代的国家构建任务。他的目标是成为“教育总统”。
随后，9名来自基地组织的激进圣战分子于9月11日袭击了美国。作为回应，布什下令入侵支持恐怖主义的阿富汗和伊拉克。作为当时布什政府的一员，我亲眼目睹了这种转变的明显迹象。布什上任时怀揣着一种总统任期愿景，但历史却给出了完全不同的走向。
战争重塑的不仅仅是坐镇坚毅书桌后的总统本人，也改变了总统身边的团队。特朗普的反恐主任乔·肯特辞职一事就印证了这一点。正如肯特事件所显示的那样，开战前意见一致的顾问，在战事爆发后未必仍能保持立场统一。
不占领伊朗、摧毁其政权战力：更明智的战争计划
这种情况在往届总统任内也曾发生。威尔逊政府早期，威尔逊依赖得克萨斯州政治幕僚爱德华·豪斯上校的建议，豪斯与总统关系密切，甚至曾住在白宫。
然而战争期间情况发生了变化，国务院和白宫内部的批评者开始反对豪斯全权指挥战争的权限。威尔逊与豪斯还在《凡尔赛和约》问题上产生分歧，这导致他们曾经亲密的关系彻底破裂。
至于约翰逊，他素来不容忍内部异议，驱逐或压制了所有质疑其越南战略的顾问。约翰逊先是将国防部长罗伯特·麦克纳马拉——最初越南战争的公开代言人——晾在一边，因为他注意到并反感麦克纳马拉对越南政策日益增长的怀疑态度。
约翰逊想要并最终拥有了一个回音室，这对他的政府和整个国家都造成了损害。
在布什政府时期，伊拉克战争在布什的国家安全团队内部引发了官僚体系内战。这场内部斗争导致了瓦莱丽·普莱姆事件，一名中情局卧底特工的身份被曝光后，副总统切尼的高级助手斯库特·利比遭到起诉。
但利比并未泄露她的身份；其官僚体系中的死敌迪克·阿米蒂奇才是泄密者，而阿米蒂奇在调查期间可耻地保持沉默。这一事件表明，战争带来的更高风险会在多大程度上搅乱政府，更不用说波及无辜的生命。
为何特朗普面临一个痛苦的抉择：若无法达成协议，是否要摧毁伊朗的石油供应
战争也会给总统带来个人代价，有时甚至会改变其行为举止。2003年，布什放弃了打高尔夫球这一少数能让他逃离总统压力的消遣方式。
他多年后表示，不愿在美军士兵在伊拉克阵亡期间被拍到在高尔夫球场上。正如他在2008年解释的那样：“我不想让某位儿子刚刚阵亡的母亲看到总司令在打高尔夫球。”
这番话悄然道出了战时总统每日背负的重担，令人心头一沉。
在其他案例中，战时总统承受的代价甚至更为沉重。威尔逊在欧洲期间中风，在任期剩余的大部分时间里都处于瘫痪状态；他的团队对美国民众隐瞒了这一情况，由他的妻子伊迪丝秘密打理白宫事务。
罗斯福在第四个总统任期内于63岁时去世。见过他临终前模样的人都觉得他面色苍白、憔悴不堪，远超他的实际年龄。离任时年仅60岁的约翰逊身形明显消瘦，在离开白宫不到四年后便与世长辞。
尽管这些例子看似令人胆寒，但也有一个颇具启发性的反例。
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乔治·H·W·布什发动海湾战争时目标明确，组建了广泛的国际联盟，将萨达姆·侯赛因的军队逐出科威特，达成目标后便迅速撤军。布什的国家安全团队纪律严明、凝聚力极强。
这场战争似乎并未从根本上损害布什的总统任期或他个人。但即便如此，布什也无法逃脱战时领导的政治压力。他被认为过于专注外交事务，因而与陷入衰退的国内经济脱节，这导致许多人认为几乎不可能发生的事情最终成真：在连任竞选前夕支持率高达91%的布什，在1992年败给了比尔·克林顿。
这里的教训并非总统应回避使用武力。特朗普总统展现出了勇气，敢于对抗半个世纪以来最凶残、最具掠夺性的政权之一。
做出战争决定是总统必须做出的最艰难抉择。它会付出生命的代价，以不可预知的方式改变世界。甚至在战争结束之前，它就会改变总统、他的团队和他的施政议程，以无法完全预料的方式考验他的品格，耗竭他的身心。
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特维·特洛伊是罗纳德·里根研究所的高级研究员，曾任白宫高级助手。著有五部关于总统任期的著作，包括《权力与金钱：总司令与工业巨头之间的史诗冲突》。
TEVI TROY: Trump faces the burdens of a wartime presidency
The resignation of counterterrorism Director Joe Kent echoes past wartime fractures in presidential teams
2026-04-04 16:02 EDT / Fox News
By Tevi Troy Fox News
America’s war with the mullahs of Tehran is into its second month, and it has already changed Donald Trump’s presidency in important ways. As the president considers how to navigate these new dynamics, it’s worth considering the experience of some previous presidents who entered office not expecting to be wartime presidents.
Woodrow Wilson ended a four-cycle Republican winning streak by winning the three-way election of 1912. He did so because his two opponents, former president Teddy Roosevelt and incumbent president William Howard Taft, split the Republican vote.
As president, Wilson embarked on an aggressive progressive domestic policy agenda. Things changed when World War I broke out in Europe midway through Wilson’s first term. Wilson then ran for re-election in 1916, promising to keep America out of the conflict, even using the slogan “He kept us out of war.”
He did not keep that promise, though, and America entered the war in 1917 during the first year of his second term.
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Woodrow Wilson’s portrait during his campaign for New Jersey Governor in 1910.(Circa Images/GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932 to rescue the economy from the Great Depression. In his third term, he gained a new mission: fighting the Axis Powers and presiding over the largest military mobilization in American history. Roosevelt addressed this shift at a 1943 news conference where he explained the transition from “Dr. New Deal” to “Dr. Win-the-War.” FDR’s quip highlighted the way his administration had to reorder itself to face the new challenge.
Lyndon Johnson came to office unexpectedly after the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy. He took over in peacetime and began pursuing his dream of a Great Society, a sweeping domestic agenda to rival Roosevelt’s New Deal.
As he managed to pass his ambitious — and costly — domestic agenda, he soon found himself and his administration consumed by the conflict in Vietnam. The experience was so draining that, by 1968, Johnson, who had spent his whole life pursuing the presidency, shocked the world by refusing to seek re-election.
In 2000, George W. Bush explicitly campaigned on pursuing a humble foreign policy, rejecting the nation-building missions of the Bill Clinton era. His ambition was to be the “Education President.”
Then, 19 militant jihadis from al Qaeda struck America on September 11. In response, Bush ordered the invasions of terror-supporting countries Afghanistan and Iraq. As someone who served in that administration, the shift I saw was palpable. Bush had entered office with one kind of vision for his presidency, but history had a different idea entirely.
President George W. Bush, right, speaks about flooding in the Midwest that displaced thousands during a briefing about the floods as Vice President Dick Cheney listens June 17, 2008, in Washington, D.C.(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
War reshapes more than just the man sitting behind the Resolute Desk. It changes the teams around the president. We saw this with the resignation of Trump’s counterterrorism director, Joe Kent. As the Kent episode showed, advisors who were in alignment before the shooting starts are not necessarily in alignment once fighting begins.
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This sort of thing has also happened in previous presidencies. In the early years of Wilson’s administration, Wilson was reliant on the advice of Texan political operative Colonel Edward House, who was so close to the president that he even lived in the White House.
Things changed during the war, however, as internal critics in the State Department and the White House pushed back against House’s broad mandate managing the war.Wilson and House also clashed over the Versailles Treaty, which led to a permanent end to their once close relationship.
As for Johnson, he was famously intolerant of internal dissent, and he drove away or silenced advisors who questioned his Vietnam strategy. Johnson pushed aside Defense Secretary Robert McNamara — initially the face of the Vietnam War— after Johnson noticed and didn’t appreciate McNamara’s increasing skepticism of Johnson’s Vietnam policy.
Johnson wanted — and got — an echo chamber, to his administration and to our nation’s detriment.
Daylight saving time first went into effect under the Johnson administration after passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966.(Bettmann/Contributor via Getty Images)
In the Bush administration, the Iraq war set off a bureaucratic civil war inside Bush’s national security team. This internal struggle led to the Valerie Plame affair, which brought about the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s top aide, Scooter Libby, after the exposure of the name of a covert CIA operative.
Libby, however, had not leaked her name; his bureaucratic nemesis Dick Armitage was the leaker, and Armitage shamefully stayed silent about his role during the investigation. The episode showed the degree to which the higher stakes brought about by war can roil an administration, not to mention innocent lives.
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War also takes a personal toll on presidents. Sometimes it leads to behavioral changes. In 2003, Bush gave up playing golf, one of his few outlets for escaping the pressures of the presidency.
He said years later he was unwilling to be seen on the links while American soldiers were dying in Iraq. As he explained in 2008, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf.”
It was a quietly devastating admission about the weight a wartime president carries every day.
In other cases, the toll of being president in wartime has been even heavier. Wilson suffered a stroke while in Europe and was incapacitated for much of the rest of the administration; his team kept the American people in the dark as his wife Edith secretly managed things in the White House.
Roosevelt died during his fourth term at 63. Those who saw him in his final days found him to be pale and depleted beyond his years. A visibly thinned Johnson, who left office at 60, died less than four years after exiting the White House.
While these examples may seem harrowing, there is also one instructive counterexample.
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George H.W. Bush entered the Gulf War with a limited objective, built a broad international coalition for expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, achieved that objective and got out. Bush’s national security team was extraordinarily disciplined and cohesive.
The war did not appear to fundamentally damage Bush’s presidency or his person. Yet even Bush could not escape the political gravity of wartime leadership. He was perceived as so focused on foreign affairs that he lost touch with a domestic economy in recession, leading to what many believed was highly improbable when Bush had a 91% approval rating on the way, his defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton in 1992.
The lesson here is not that presidents should shrink from the use of force. President Trump has shown courage in taking on one of the most murderous and predatory regimes in the past half century.
The decision to go to war is the most difficult decision a president must make. It costs lives and changes the world in unpredictable ways. And even before the end is reached, it changes the president, his staff and his agenda, testing his character and taxing his body and soul in ways that cannot be fully anticipated.
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Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute and a former senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including “The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.”
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