2026-07-08T17:23:34.875Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/08/politics/trump-misjudged-iran
6月16日，唐纳德·特朗普总统称伊朗领导人是“非常理性的人”，“很好打交道”。他甚至笃定他们“并未被极端化”。
周三，特朗普的论调几乎完全相反。他将伊朗领导人称为“疯子”、“邪恶之徒”和“变态狂”，称他们是“肮脏的玩家”和“人渣”。
“他们每天都在违反协议，”特朗普在土耳其北约峰会期间表示，“他们撒谎，他们欺骗。”
就在特朗普大幅修正对伊朗领导人的评价之际，美伊之间脆弱的停火协议看起来比以往任何时候都更加岌岌可危：伊朗在霍尔木兹海峡袭击了三艘船只，美国随即发动了反击。特朗普周三甚至宣称停火协议“已经结束”，尽管他在其他场合也曾表示仍对达成和平协议抱有希望。
我们可以从一个角度解读特朗普6月中旬的乐观表态：他不过是在奉承那些正与他进行高风险谈判的对象。这种做法并非闻所未闻。
但特朗普在伊朗问题上的过往记录给出了另一种完全不同的解释：他严重误判了对手的意图和自身的筹码，一再任由德黑兰牵着鼻子走。
这种姿态让局势拖延了三个月（自特朗普4月7日宣布首次停火以来），并让局势对共和党来说愈发接近2026年中期选举的风险节点。而即将到来的选举也让特朗普在制裁伊朗、全面恢复战争方面陷入政治困境。
这并不是说特朗普真的相信伊朗领导人已经真正缓和了立场。例如，当被问及周三他对伊朗领导人的评价为何发生变化时，他说：“我了解了他们。”
但他似乎一再赌定伊朗距离达成协议已经不远，认为只要做出一些适度的言辞让步，再给一点时间，就能推动伊朗领导人最终达成协议——结果却一次次被证明大错特错。
目前已有无数迹象表明特朗普的判断失误。
最引人注目的或许是，他一再威胁伊朗，如果不满足他的要求就会迎来灭顶之灾。但几乎每一次，这些威胁都被证实是虚张声势。特朗普经常声称他之所以收手，是因为协议即将达成，但这份协议至今仍未以任何持久的形式落地。
不难理解伊朗为何会得出结论：特朗普根本没有勇气兑现他的威胁——他们只需等待，就能耗到他让步。
特朗普还反复声称，不仅协议即将达成（这或许可以被解读为毫无根据的乐观），而且伊朗迫切渴望达成协议。早在3月31日，也就是三个多月前，特朗普就曾表示德黑兰“乞求达成协议”。
但如果伊朗真的迫切渴望协议，那他们的表现方式确实有些奇怪。
首次停火协议宣布后不久，双方就对协议的确切内容产生了争执，而伊朗似乎一再违反特朗普所描述的协议条款。
特朗普在4月宣布停火时表示，停火“以……霍尔木兹海峡完全、立即且安全地通航为前提”。但即便这一前提从未实现，特朗普仍在努力维持停火协议。
紧接着，伊朗又发动了一系列挑衅行动，似乎意在试探特朗普政府的决心。政府方面一再淡化这些挑衅行为，极力辩称这些行为在技术上并未违反停火协议。
5月份就发生过这样的情况：当时德黑兰向试图引导船只通过霍尔木兹海峡的美国舰艇开火，五角大楼称此举并未达到“违反停火协议的阈值”。国防部长皮特·赫格斯瑟甚至勉强辩称，此次袭击并不属于战争范畴，因为美军在海峡的行动是单独的作战任务。
时至今时今日，即便上月双方达成了更实质性的停火协议——此次协议以谅解备忘录的形式白纸黑字敲定——伊朗的挑衅行动仍在继续。
最引人注目的或许是，这份谅解备忘录已经明显偏向伊朗的诉求——以至于许多共和党人提出批评，特朗普政府也试图淡化其书面条款，称其并未反映全部协议内容。（双方还就谅解备忘录中的语言实际含义存在争议。）
然而，相较于接受这份看起来相当有利的临时协议，伊朗似乎更热衷于控制霍尔木兹海峡。（谅解备忘录呼吁美国开始解除封锁，但未明确这条关键水道的长期控制权归属。）
从美国的角度来看，这并不意味着过去三个月的停火完全徒劳无功。CNN记者戴维·戈德曼周二指出，近期油价大幅下跌为特朗普带来了一定筹码，考虑到油价波动对国内政治局面的重大影响。曾在两党总统任内担任高级国家安全职位的CNN全球事务分析师布雷特·M·麦格克上周也曾辩称，美国争取到的时间可以在多个方面对伊朗施加压力。
但在当下，特朗普政府也正处于倒计时之中。拼凑起来的停火协议让冲突距离11月的选举又近了三个月，而目前看来民主党很可能在众议院选举中重创特朗普所在的共和党。
特朗普已经多次明确表示，他不希望重启全面战争，政府内部甚至私下承认，他们只希望这场战争能够结束。特朗普上月承认，美国民众可能对进一步的大规模军事行动“没有兴趣”。
随着每一天的过去，重新发动一场在国内已经明显不受欢迎的全面战争的前景，看起来也越来越没有吸引力。
特朗普一个月前曾多次表示，他担心伊朗“在牵着我们的鼻子走”。而他在周三再次暗示，情况或许正是如此。
“他们说他们想达成协议，但他们并没有——你知道，他们要求暂停，他们要为哈梅内伊举行葬礼，我说那就给他们吧，”他在北约峰会上说道，“然后他们就开始发射导弹。我的意思是，这太疯狂了。”
或许这不过是反复上演的老戏码，只是他不愿正视而已。
How Trump has misjudged Iran
2026-07-08T17:23:34.875Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/08/politics/trump-misjudged-iran
On June 16, President Donald Trump called Iran’s leaders “very rational people” who were “nice to deal with.” He even assured they were “not radicalized.”
On Wednesday, Trump offered a nearly polar-opposite take. He called Iran’s leaders “cuckoo,” “evil” and “sick,” “dirty players” and “scum.”
“They violate the agreement every day,” Trump said at a NATO summit in Turkey. “They lie. They cheat.”
The president offered his sharply revised review of Iran’s leaders as the tenuous ceasefire between the US and Tehran looks to be more endangered than ever after Iran targeted three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the US launched strikes in response. Trump on Wednesday even declared the ceasefire to be “over,” though he has at other times suggested he holds out hope for a peace deal.
One way to look at Trump’s rosy words in mid-June was that he was just flattering people with whom he was engaged in high-stakes negotiations. That’s not unheard of.
But Trump’s track record on the Iran war suggests another explanation entirely: He has badly misjudged his adversary’s intentions and his own leverage, and has repeatedly allowed Tehran to string him along.
That posture has delayed a resolution for three months (since Trump announced the initial ceasefire on April 7) and brought the situation perilously close to the 2026 midterms for the GOP. And the looming elections make it politically difficult for Trump to crack down on Iran and return to full-scale war.
That’s not to say that Trump believed Iran’s leaders had truly moderated. Asked on Wednesday, for example, what had changed in his assessment of Iran’s leaders, he said, “I got to know them.”
But he seems to have repeatedly wagered that Iran was close enough to a deal that he could push their leaders over the finish line with some modest rhetorical concessions and just a little more time — only to be proven wrong over and over again.
There are countless signs of Trump’s misjudgment at this point.
Perhaps most strikingly, he repeatedly threatened Iran with doom if it didn’t comply with his demands. But just about every time, those threats were revealed to be a bluff. Trump often claimed he was backing off because a deal was near, but that deal still hasn’t materialized in any lasting form.
It’s not difficult to see how Iran might have concluded that Trump simply didn’t have the nerve to make good on his threats — and that it could just wait him out.
Trump has also repeatedly claimed not only that a deal was near — which could perhaps be dismissed as unfounded optimism — but also that Iran was desperate for a deal. Trump said Tehran was “begging for a deal” as far back as March 31, more than three months ago.
But if Iran has been desperate for a deal, it sure has a funny way of showing it.
Almost immediately after the initial ceasefire was announced, disputes broke out over what precisely had been agreed to, and Iran seemed to repeatedly violate the terms, as Trump had described them.
In announcing the ceasefire in April, Trump said it was “subject to … the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” But even though that never happened, Trump pressed forward in trying to keep the truce going.
Iran threw on top of that a series of provocations seemingly intended to test the Trump administration’s resolve. Repeatedly, the administration downplayed the provocations and strained to argue how they didn’t technically violate the ceasefire.
That included in May when Tehran fired on US ships that were attempting to guide vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, which the Pentagon said didn’t clear the “threshold” for a ceasefire violation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth even gamely suggested the attacks weren’t part of the war because US actions in the strait were a separate operation.
Fast forward to today, and the provocations have continued even after a more substantial ceasefire was agreed to last month — this time, with text laid out in a memorandum of understanding.
Perhaps most strikingly, the MOU was already significantly slanted toward Iran’s demands — so much so that many Republicans criticized it and the Trump administration tried to downplay its written terms as not reflective of the full series of agreements. (There have also been disputes about what the language in the MOU actually means.)
And yet, Iran seems more interested in controlling the Strait of Hormuz than accepting what appears to be a pretty favorable temporary agreement. (The MOU called on the US to begin removing its blockade but long-term control of the critical waterway wasn’t specified.)
None of this means the ceasefires over the past three months have been completely for naught, from a US perspective. CNN’s David Goldman noted Tuesday how the sharp decline in oil prices in recent weeks gives Trump some leverage, considering how large that loomed over the domestic political picture. And CNN global affairs analyst Brett M. McGurk, who served in senior national security positions under presidents of both parties, argued last week that the US buying time can apply pressure on Iran in a number of ways.
But at this point, the Trump administration is on the clock, too. The stitched-together ceasefires have brought the conflict three months closer to the November elections, which have looked like a potential Democratic rout of Trump’s party, at least in the House.
The president has repeatedly made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to return to full-scale war, and the administration has even privately acknowledged it just wants the war to be over with. The president last month admitted the country might not have the “appetite” for more major military action.
And with each day, the prospect of reigniting a full-scale war that has proven remarkably unpopular at home has to look less and less appetizing.
Trump said repeatedly a month ago that he feared Iran was “tapping us along.” And he signaled again Wednesday that might be the case.
“They’re saying they want to make a deal, but they don’t — you know, they ask for a timeout, they wanted to do the funeral of Khamenei, and I said give it to them,” he said at the NATO summit. “And they start shooting missiles. I mean, it’s a crazy thing.”
Or maybe it’s the same thing that’s happened over and over again, and he just didn’t want to see it.
发表回复