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特朗普在伊朗问题上面临关乎其政治遗产的困境
分析文章
[斯蒂芬·科林森]
3小时前发布于2026年3月20日，美国东部时间凌晨12:01
唐纳德·特朗普 中东 皮特·赫格塞斯
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美国总统唐纳德·特朗普于3月6日在华盛顿特区白宫的圆桌会议上聆听发言。
布伦丹·斯马洛夫斯基/法新社/盖蒂图片社
问题不再是唐纳德·特朗普总统是否已经失去了对他新伊朗战争叙事的控制。
而是他是否已经失去了对战争本身的控制。
战争一旦开始，就会产生自身的潜伏势头，这种势头可能会超过白宫的政治宣传速度。如果这些战争违背了总统决定其方向的能力，政治上的流沙就会显现。
在与伊朗最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊遇刺这一惊雷般的冲突开端之后，特朗普团队或许本希望在三周后能处于更有利的位置。然而，出路仍然难以确定。
尽管美国和以色列无疑对德黑兰的军工复合体和镇压机器造成了巨大破坏，但伊朗通过扩大战争影响掌握了主动权。伊朗封锁了至关重要的石油运输通道霍尔木兹海峡，这威胁到全球经济瘫痪。美国人已经受到影响，普通汽油价格正朝着每加仑4美元的方向攀升。
情况可能会变得更糟。
海湾地区的区域性石油和天然气设施遭到袭击。特朗普周四坚称，他事先并不知道以色列计划袭击伊朗的南帕尔斯气田。美国有线电视新闻网的消息来源驳斥了他的说法——考虑到美以之间的紧密协调，这一说法很难站得住脚。总统随后表示，他已经告诉总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡“不要那么做”。
但这一事件只会加剧“让美国优先”（MAGA）批评者的担忧，即由以色列而非美国在主导这场战争。
几天来遭受导弹和无人机警报惊吓的海湾国家感到沮丧，它们代表着未来城市景观的经济奇迹正面临危险，而这场战争是它们不愿参与的，是由其美国盟友挑起的。
与此同时，特朗普对自己无法简单地命令欧洲国家派遣军舰以开放霍尔木兹海峡感到愤怒。“这不是我们的战争，”德国总理弗里德里希·默茨本周表示。
一个从未就作为战争正当理由的伊朗核威胁提出明确说法的政府，迄今为止也没有为特朗普所说的“很快结束”提供任何计划。国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯周四警告称，没有明确的退出时间表。“最终，这将由总统决定，我们会说，‘嘿，我们已经为美国人民确保安全所需的目标达成了。’”
但是，即将被政府要求提供高达2000亿美元资金以资助这场战争（可能更多）的立法者们将需要得到答案。
“阿拉斯加州的民众问我这场战争会持续多久？”参议员莉萨·穆尔科斯基告诉美国有线电视新闻网的劳伦·福克斯，“会有地面部队部署吗？这将花费多少？”在阿拉斯加州，现役军人和退伍军人的比例最高，这些问题尤为尖锐。人数极少的共和党多数派即将面临最大的考验，问题是：如果持不同意见的“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）共和党人表示反对，民主党人真的会在中期选举年帮助特朗普资助他的战争吗？众议院议长迈克·约翰逊的回答是：“我们会拭目以待。”
战争部长皮特·赫格塞斯（左）与参谋长联席会议主席空军上将丹·凯恩（右）周四在弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿的五角大楼参加新闻发布会。
温·麦克纳梅/盖蒂图片社
“没有永久战争”：赫格塞斯
特朗普态度强硬。“我们几乎摧毁了所有可以摧毁的目标，”他周四在椭圆形办公室说道。
赫格塞斯驳斥了那些“认为这场冲突才19天，我们就似乎正走向无尽深渊、永久战争或泥潭”的记者。
在某种程度上，他的说法有一定道理。
数千次美以空袭和导弹打击无疑取得了军事行动上的胜利。伊朗威胁其地区的能力肯定已经大幅削弱。但这种打击是否已经致命地削弱了政权的政治基础？国家情报总监塔尔西·加巴德周三表示，伊朗政权虽已受损但“似乎仍完整无损”。
伊朗可能正在输掉特朗普发动的这场战争，但却在赢得自己的战争。
一个残酷镇压民众、已造成数千人死亡、且邻国无人惋惜的政权，其唯一目标就是生存。这意味着要提高世界其他地区的经济代价——从而增加对特朗普的政治压力。伊朗已经展示出，封锁霍尔木兹海峡的油轮交通是一种强大武器。那么，政府为何没有预见到其使用呢？“（你们）不需要担心这个，”赫格塞斯七天前这样描述这条至关重要的水道。
海事专家警告称，重新开放霍尔木兹海峡将非常危险。空袭只能起到有限作用。可能需要一支庞大的地面部队才能清除海峡边境山区地形中的无人机和导弹发射点。因此，特朗普正面临几乎每一位现代美国总统都曾面临的一个重大抉择：要结束一场战争，他是否必须先升级战争？
“我不会在任何地方部署军队。如果我部署了，我当然不会告诉你们，但我不会部署。”总统周四告诉记者，不过他试图转移话题，说了一句不相干的话，“看，几周前道琼斯指数刚刚突破50000点。”
财政部长斯科特·贝森特建议解除对已在海上的伊朗石油的制裁，以试图降低油价。这将意味着美国允许其敌人有资金支持其战争努力。即使这只是安抚石油市场的虚张声势，也反映出危机正在迅速升级。
目前看来似乎没有计划。
“我认为我们现在甚至不知道我们的目标是什么。目标似乎每天都在变化，而且，你知道，我们真的没有预见到这会成为一场持久战，”内特·斯旺森（曾在拜登政府担任国家安全委员会伊朗事务主任，并在2025年初参与过特朗普的伊朗谈判团队）在接受美国有线电视新闻网国际频道的贝基·安德森采访时表示。
华盛顿已经赌了几天，看特朗普何时会宣布胜利并撤军。
但不断升级的冲突意味着他可能不再有这个选择。
“在战时没有人能做到完美，”赫格塞斯周四表示。
这是事实，但“完美”还远未实现。在发动一场新的战争后，特朗普无法控制战争持续多久、战争会扩散到哪里、代价会有多大，以及会给疲惫于通胀的美国民众生活带来多大的困扰。
而这场战争正危险地定义着他的第二个总统任期。
唐纳德·特朗普 中东 皮特·赫格塞斯
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Analysis: Trump faces legacy-defining dilemmas in Iran | CNN Politics
[Politics]5 min read
Trump faces legacy-defining dilemmas in Iran
Analysis by
[Stephen Collinson]
3 hr ago
PUBLISHED Mar 20, 2026, 12:01 AM ET
Donald Trump The Middle East Pete Hegseth
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US President Donald Trump listens during a roundtable in the White House in Washington, DC, on March 6.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
The question is no longer whether President Donald Trump has lost control of the narrative of his new war in Iran.
It’s whether he’s lost control of the war itself.
Wars, once begun, create their own insidious momentum that can outpace a White House’s political messaging. If they defy a president’s capacity to determine their direction, political quicksand beckons.
After the thunderclap opening of the conflict with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump’s team might have hoped to be in a better place three weeks in. Instead, the way out remains impossible to identify.
While the United States and Israel have undeniably visited huge destruction on Tehran’s military industrial complex and machinery of repression, Iran has seized the initiative by widening the impact of the war. Its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route, threatens to paralyze the global economy. Americans are already hurting, with average gasoline prices heading towards $4 a gallon.
Things could get worse.
Regional oil and gas installations across the Gulf region are under attack. Trump insisted Thursday he hadn’t known that Israel planned to attack Iran’s South Pars gas field. CNN sources contradicted his claim — which was hard to square given tight US-Israeli coordination. The president then said he’d told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “don’t do that.”
But the episode only exacerbated concern among MAGA critics that Israel, and not the US, is running the war.
Gulf states hit by days of missile and drone alerts are frustrated that the economic miracle exemplified by their futuristic cityscapes is in danger from a war their US ally started that they didn’t want.
Trump meanwhile is fuming that he can’t simply order Europeans to send ships to open the Strait. “This is not our war,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week.
An administration that never got its story straight on the Iranian nuclear threat that is being used as a justification for the war has so far offered no plan for what Trump means when he says it will end “soon.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Thursday that there were no definite time frames for an exit. “It will be at the president’s choosing, ultimately, where we say, ‘Hey, we’ve achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security.’”
But lawmakers, who are about to be asked by the administration for as much as $200 billion to fund the war and possibly more, are going to need answers.
“The people in Alaska are asking me how long is this going on?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski told CNN’s Lauren Fox. “Are there going to be boots on the ground, how much is this going to cost?” These questions are especially acute in Alaska, which has one of the highest concentrations of active duty soldiers and veterans. The minuscule GOP majority is about to face its biggest test and this question: If dissident MAGA Republicans balk, will Democrats really help Trump fund his war in a midterm election year? Here’s House Speaker Mike Johnson’s answer: “We’ll find out.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (L) arrives for a press briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Dan Caine (R) at the Pentagon on Thursday in Arlington, Virginia.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
‘No forever war’: Hegseth
Trump is defiant. “We’ve obliterated just about everything there is to obliterate,” he said in the Oval Office Thursday.
And Hegseth rebuked reporters who “think just 19 days into this conflict that we’re somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire.”
Up to a point, he has a point.
Thousands of US and Israeli sorties and missile strikes surely delivered an operational victory. Iran’s capacity to threaten its region must be a fraction of what it was. But has the pummeling fatally weakened the regime’s political foundation? Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Wednesday it was degraded but “appears to be intact.”
Iran might be losing Trump’s war. But it’s winning its own.
A brutal regime that has killed thousands of its people and which none of its neighbors would miss has one goal: its own survival. That means raising the economic price for the rest of the world — and therefore the political heat on Trump. It’s already shown that shutting down tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is a potent weapon. It’s odd then, the administration didn’t anticipate its use. “(You) don’t need to worry about it,” Hegseth said of the vital waterway — seven days ago.
Maritime experts warn that reopening the Strait will be dangerous. Aerial bombardment can only do so much. A substantial ground force might be needed to flush out drone and missile launch sites in mountainous terrain bordering the Strait. Trump therefore is nearing a fateful choice almost every modern commander in chief has faced: To get out of a war, must he escalate first?
Residents watch and take pictures as flames and smoke rise from an oil storage facility struck as attacks hit the city during the US–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, on March 7.
Alireza Sotakbar/ISNA/AP
“I’m not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you, but I’m not putting troops,” the president told reporters Thursday, but grasping for a way to change the subject, he produced a non sequitur. “Look, the Dow just hit 50,000 a couple of weeks ago.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea in a bid to lower oil prices. This would mean the US allowing its enemy a way to finance its war effort. Even if this is a bluff to soothe oil markets, it speaks of a fast-growing crisis.
It doesn’t seem like there’s a plan.
“I don’t think we have a clue what our objective is at this point. It seems to change by the day and, you know, it was just not foreseen that this was going to be a protracted war when really it should have been,” Nate Swanson, who was director for Iran on the National Security Council in the Biden administration and served on Trump’s Iran negotiating team in early 2025, told Becky Anderson on CNN International.
Washington has been betting for days on when Trump would declare victory and bring the troops home.
But the spiraling conflict means he may no longer have that option.
“Nobody can deliver perfection in wartime,” Hegseth said Thursday.
That’s fair, but “perfection” is nowhere close. After starting a new war, Trump doesn’t control how long it will last, where it will spread, how much it will cost and how badly it will complicate the lives of inflation-weary Americans.
And it’s in danger of defining his second presidency.
Donald Trump The Middle East Pete Hegseth
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