[斯蒂芬·科林森]
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更新时间：2026年3月23日，美国东部时间凌晨12:46
发布时间：2026年3月23日，美国东部时间凌晨12:01
唐纳德·特朗普 中东 石油与天然气
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2026年3月21日，伊朗德黑兰沙赫拉克-戈尔布（Shahrak-e Gharb）社区，一名名叫纳吉斯（Narges）的妇女从一栋被炸毁的住宅和商业建筑中向外眺望。
马吉德·赛义迪（Majid Saeedi）/盖蒂图片社
周五，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普称他正在考虑“逐步结束”与伊朗的战争。但一天后，他威胁要“摧毁”伊朗的发电厂，这一升级行动可能会进一步使冲突失控。
在这场已进入第四周的战争中，特朗普反复无常的言论正逐渐形成一种模式。
特朗普此前曾要求盟友派遣军舰重新开放霍尔木兹海峡——这一关键的石油出口咽喉要道。当盟友们表示犹豫时，他又声称自己并不需要帮助，并指责他们因不愿参与这场他们反对的战争而显得怯懦。在他要求伊朗在48小时内重新开放海峡否则将对其发电厂发动猛攻之前，他还坚称伊朗“迟早会自己开放”。
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这种言论的反复无常突显了霍尔木兹海峡的极端重要性，以及其关闭所造成的影响：数十艘油轮滞留、能源价格危机爆发，并可能将全球经济推向衰退，危及数百万人的生计。
但特朗普正处于一个临界点，他的言辞混乱和矛盾的威胁已无法掩盖其选择带来的后果。他可能即将面临的抉择是：通过升级冲突能否找到出路，还是会加剧他已经难以控制的经济和政治后果。
就眼前而言，总统已为自己划定了一条全新的红线，但没有迹象表明伊朗会在他设定的最后期限前让步，而伊朗威胁要攻击经过海峡的船只，这是其在冲突中的主要杠杆。
2026年3月20日，唐纳德·特朗普总统离开白宫时停下来向记者讲话。
希瑟·迪尔（Heather Diehl）/盖蒂图片社
如果总统下令攻击伊朗发电厂，他很可能会引发伊朗迄今为止最猛烈的报复行动，这可能会彻底摧毁全球石油市场。如果他未能采取行动且海峡仍被封锁，他将让伊朗领导人证明，尽管在军事上处于明显劣势，他们仍能违抗美国和以色列的军事力量。
攻击发电厂可能会给伊朗的革命武装力量施加新的压力，这些力量控制着大部分民用基础设施。但这也可能在一个本已面临严重物资匮乏的国家引发人道主义危机。医院、供水和卫生设施都需要可靠的电力供应。
从更广泛的意义上讲，特朗普的新困境引发了人们的担忧和批评，即他发动这场未经国会磋商、也未向美国民众说明其代价的战争，既缺乏战略规划，也没有结束策略。
“他们没有愿景、没有计划、没有退出战略。他们显然没有预见到一些事情的发生，包括霍尔木兹海峡的关闭，”众议院民主党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯（Hakeem Jeffries）周日在CNN的《国情咨文》节目中表示。
特朗普并非在“虚张声势”
另一场升级几乎肯定会加剧这场在国内不受欢迎的冲突所引发的全球反弹。尽管这场战争可能被视为美国和以色列的战略胜利——考虑到数周来导弹和空袭造成的破坏——但这两个盟友却冒着在冲突的政治和经济层面失去优势的风险。
“总统这次不是在虚张声势，”美国驻联合国大使迈克·沃尔茨（Mike Waltz）周日在福克斯新闻上表示。
“与他的前任不同，他坚守自己的红线，不会允许这个种族灭绝政权将世界能源供应或经济作为人质。”
与此同时，财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）在NBC的《与媒体见面》节目中表示，“有时你必须升级才能降级”。他的这番话令人不寒而栗地让人联想到美国从越南到伊拉克的现代战争，这些战争最初规模较小，但最终演变成旷日持久且代价惨重的消耗战，最终导致失败。
政府的扩张性言论也为民主党人提供了政治突破口，就在当天，哥伦比亚广播公司新闻/优益调查显示，近60%的美国人认为这场战争“打得很糟糕”。
“这个政府完全脱离了现实，”康涅狄格州民主党参议员克里斯·墨菲（Chris Murphy）对NBC表示。“这场战争正在失控。数百万美国人面临物价飞涨……看不到尽头。”
尽管如此，支持政府战略的人士坚持认为，空袭已经削弱了伊朗的军事威胁，而以色列对领导层的攻击——包括对最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊的暗杀——很快就会见效。
“局势持续发酵，这进一步凸显了伊朗政府的脆弱性以及他们试图‘熬垮’特朗普的策略，我认为这不会成功，”美国海军退役副海军上将罗伯特·哈沃德（Robert Harward）周五在接受CNN《安德森·库珀360°》采访时表示。
一些分析人士认为，特朗普可能试图通过攻击伊朗的石油出口核心枢纽哈尔克岛，或清除霍尔木兹海峡沿线的导弹和无人机基地来打破伊朗的抵抗。但此类行动可能需要地面部队参与，这将是一场比特朗普威胁攻击伊朗发电厂更大的赌博。
无人机视角显示，3月22日夜间伊朗导弹袭击后，以色列南部阿拉德（Arad）的一个居民区出现弹坑，造成数十名以色列人受伤。
迪迪·海恩（Dedi Hayun）/路透社
到目前为止，伊朗政权没有任何屈服的迹象。本周末，伊朗的导弹击中了以色列城市阿拉德的一栋建筑，造成至少84人受伤，这表明伊朗仍保留着致命的打击能力。此外，伊朗还向印度洋上美英联合运营的迪戈加西亚基地发射了中程弹道导弹。虽然这些导弹都未命中目标，但2000英里的飞行轨迹表明，美国认为超出射程的基地和船只也可能受到威胁。
这些持续抵抗的迹象使得特朗普关于攻击发电厂的威胁显得更加严重。伊朗军方周日警告称，将无限期关闭霍尔木兹海峡，并袭击以色列以及设有美国基地的国家的能源和通信基础设施。紧张局势升级导致全球基准布伦特原油价格上涨1.69%，达到每桶114.09美元。这将进一步加重美国消费者的负担，他们本就面临着加油站汽油价格的上涨。
“只有糟糕的选择”
特朗普的下一步行动将至关重要。他可能会兑现最后通牒，但最终扩大战争规模；或者寻求与伊朗达成协议，但伊朗本就激进的政权在战争中可能会进一步走向极端。
“我们正接近一个决策点。不幸的是，对美国来说，我们没有好的选择，只有糟糕的选择，”以色列军事情报局前伊朗部门负责人丹尼·西特林诺维奇（Danny Citrinowicz）周日在接受CNN《法里德·扎卡里亚深度》采访时表示。
特朗普面临的选择空间正逐渐缩小。他可能需要通过升级战争来维护自己的可信度，并试图寻找出路。但这样做将加剧一场他声称已经“获胜”却日益难以控制的冲突。
唐纳德·特朗普 中东 石油与天然气
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Analysis: Trump’s new red line could set the Iran war on a fateful course | CNN Politics
[Stephen Collinson]
Updated 2 hr ago
Updated Mar 23, 2026, 12:46 AM ET
PUBLISHED Mar 23, 2026, 12:01 AM ET
Donald Trump The Middle East Oil & gas
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A woman named Narges looks out from her destroyed apartment in the remains of a residential and commercial building on March 21, 2026, in the Shahrak-e Gharb neighbourhood of Tehran, Iran.
Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
On Friday, President Donald Trump said he was considering “winding down” his war with Iran. But a day later, he threatened to “obliterate” the country’s power plants in an escalation that could further tip the conflict out of control.
Erratic messaging on a war entering its fourth week is becoming a pattern.
Trump previously demanded allies send ships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — a vital oil export choke point. When they demurred, he said he didn’t want help and branded them cowards for not joining a war they opposed. And before he demanded that Iran reopen the strait within 48 hours or face an onslaught on its power plants, he insisted that at some point it would “open itself.”
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The whiplash underscores the vital importance of the strait and the impact of a closure that has stranded scores of oil tankers, created an energy price crisis and threatened to nudge the global economy into a recession that could harm millions of people.
But Trump has reached a moment when rhetorical confusion and contradictory threats cannot obscure the consequences of his choices. He may be about to test whether escalating the conflict can somehow point to a way out or will worsen the economic and political consequences he’s already struggling to control.
In the immediate term, the president has drawn a huge new red line for himself, with no sign that Iran will relent by his deadline on its threat to target ships transiting the strait — its premier point of leverage in the conflict.
President Donald Trump stops to speak to reporters as he departs the White House on March 20, 2026.
Heather Diehl/Getty Images
If the president orders an attack on the plants, he is likely to trigger the most intense Iranian reprisals yet, which could pulverize global oil markets. If he fails to act and the strait remains closed, he will allow Iran’s leaders to demonstrate they can defy US and Israeli military might despite being seriously outgunned.
Attacking power plants might build fresh pressure on Iran’s revolutionary armed forces, which control much of the civilian infrastructure. But it would also risk setting off a humanitarian crisis in a country already facing deep deprivation. Hospitals, water and sanitation require reliable power.
In a broader sense, Trump’s new dilemma is fueling concern and criticism that he lacks a strategy or an endgame for a war that he launched without consulting Congress or selling the American people on its costs.
“They have got no vision, no plan, no exit strategy. They clearly didn’t anticipate some of the things that have happened, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Trump is not ‘messing around’
Another escalation would almost certainly worsen the global blowback of a domestically unpopular conflict. While the war may count as a strategic win for the US and Israel, given the destruction wrought by weeks of missile and air attacks, the two allies risk losing the political and economic dimension of the conflict.
“The president is not messing around,” Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday on Fox News.
“Unlike his predecessors, he stands by his red lines, and he’s not going to allow this genocidal regime to hold the world’s energy supplies or economies hostage.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.” His comment struck chilling parallels with modern US conflicts, from Vietnam to Iraq, that started small but degenerated into vast and losing wars of attrition.
The administration’s rhetoric of expansion also offered a political opening to Democrats on a day when a CBS News/YouGov poll showed that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe the war is going badly.
“This administration has totally lost touch with reality,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told NBC. “This war is spinning out of control. Prices are spiking for millions of Americans. … There’s no end in sight.”
Still, advocates of the administration’s strategy insist that the air assault has weakened Iran’s military threat and that Israel’s attacks on leadership — including the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — will soon begin to tell.
“The more that goes on, that’s another symbol of the (fragility of) the government and their strategy to outlast Trump, which I don’t think is going to happen,” US Navy retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday.
Some analysts believe Trump may try to break Iranian resistance with an assault on Iran’s oil exporting epicenter on Kharg Island or by seeking to flush out missiles and drone sites along the Strait of Hormuz. But such operations might require the use of ground troops, in a gamble even greater than Trump’s threatened assaults on Iranian power plants.
A drone view shows a crater in a residential neighborhood, following a night of Iranian missile strikes which injured dozens of Israelis in Arad, southern Israel, on March 22.
Dedi Hayun/Reuters
And so far, there’s no sign that the regime is cracking. Iran showed it still retains lethal capacity this weekend when a missile slammed into a building in the Israeli city of Arad, injuring at least 84 people. It also launched intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the jointly operated US-UK base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Neither projectile hit the target, but the 2000-mile flight path suggested bases and ships the US believed to be out of range could be vulnerable.
These signs of continuing capability make Trump’s decision over his threat to strike power plants even more profound. Iran’s military on Sunday warned that it would close the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely and hit energy and communications infrastructure in Israel and in nations that host US bases. The rising tensions sent the price of Brent Crude, the global benchmark for oil, up 1.69% to $114.09 a barrel. That will further strain American consumers, who are already facing higher prices for gasoline at the pump.
‘Only bad options’
Trump’s next moves will be critical. He could follow through on his ultimatum but end up expanding the war. He could seek a deal with Iran, but its already radical regime has been further radicalized by the war.
“We are approaching a decision point. And for the US unfortunately, we don’t have good options, only bad options,” Danny Citrinowicz, the former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.
Trump faces a narrowing equation. He may need to escalate the war to preserve his credibility and to grapple for a way out. But doing so would intensify an increasingly intractable conflict he claims to have already won.
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