2026-05-28T04:00:07.838Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/28/politics/iran-forever-war-outlast-trump-mcgurk-analysis
- 近50年来，历任美国总统都对伊朗采取过不同的应对手段，但冲突始终存在，根源在于伊朗伊斯兰共和国的革命意识形态。
- 伊朗宪法赋予伊斯兰革命卫队一项意识形态使命，自1979年以来，这一使命催生了袭击、劫持人质和代理人战争。
- 即便唐纳德·特朗普总统正在就一项潜在协议进行谈判，伊朗新任最高领袖仍重申其消灭以色列、将美国逐出中东的承诺。
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布雷特·麦古克是CNN全球事务分析师，曾在乔治·W·布什、巴拉克·奥巴马、唐纳德·特朗普和乔·拜登任期内担任高级国家安全职位。
2004年1月我首次抵达巴格达后不久，美国情报部门截获了艾曼·扎瓦希里——奥萨马·本·拉登的副手——写给伊拉克基地组织领导人阿布·穆萨布·扎卡维的一封信。信中讨论了使用残酷暴力建立伊斯兰哈里发国的计划——首先在伊拉克境内，最终扩展到整个中东地区。
“这个时代伊斯兰世界最伟大的战斗现已打响，”扎瓦希里写道。
美国公开了这封信，但几乎没人当真认为基地组织能够在阿拉伯世界核心地带割据并统治领土。
十年后，我再次回到巴格达，此时扎卡维的继任者阿布·巴克尔·巴格达迪已攻占伊拉克第二大城市，并宣布建立一个面积相当于印第安纳州的哈里发国，数百万民众处于其统治之下。在接下来的十年里，我们逐步摧毁了这个政权。
这个教训让我铭记于心：当领导人公开宣布长期意识形态目标，并反复展示使用暴力实现目标的意愿时，务必认真对待。
这一教训同样适用于伊朗。
近50年来，两党的历任美国总统都通过外交、制裁、威慑和军事力量的不同组合来应对伊朗。但美国与伊朗伊斯兰共和国之间的冲突始终存在，因为伊朗行为的核心驱动力始终惊人地一致：伊朗伊斯兰共和国自身的革命意识形态。
华盛顿的辩论往往聚焦于策略。民主党倾向于优先开展外交，将巴拉克·奥巴马总统2015年与德黑兰达成的核协议视为限制伊朗核野心、避免战争的最佳机制。共和党则通常支持“极限施压”策略和军事威慑，认为伊朗利用外交安排继续在地区进行侵略活动。
两种观点都有其合理之处，但都未能完全解释这一问题的持续性。
贯穿始终的并非华盛顿政坛的政治风向变化，而是伊朗政权的持久本质，以及自1979年以来伊朗伊斯兰共和国所确立的目标。
据报道，唐纳德·特朗普总统目前正与伊朗讨论的任何协议——一项旨在重新开放霍尔木兹海峡、或许还能施加新核限制的交易性协议——都不会改变伊朗47年来的既定路线。
伊朗宪法赋予伊斯兰革命卫队（IRGC）的不仅是防御性军事角色，还有其所谓的“以真主之名进行圣战的意识形态使命”。几十年来，伊朗革命领导层将这一使命解读为在中东扩展伊朗影响力、将美国逐出该地区，并支持致力于消灭以色列的武装运动。
这些目标超越了美国和伊朗历任总统的更迭、经济危机、制裁运动以及外交破冰。
它们解释了自1979年占领美国驻德黑兰大使馆以来，伊朗与美国关系中所呈现的袭击、劫持人质、恐怖主义和代理人战争模式。它们也解释了伊朗对该地区激进组织的持续投入，包括真主党、哈马斯、巴勒斯坦伊斯兰圣战组织、伊拉克民兵组织和胡塞武装。
伊斯兰革命卫队的设立初衷就是在国内守护革命，并在国外推进革命。其远征部队——圣城旅花了数十年时间建立武装伙伴网络，能够将伊朗影响力投射到边境之外。
在不同时期，美国政策制定者都曾希望，通过提供经济机遇和重新融入国际体系，伊朗的革命热忱可能会有所缓和。这种希望正是奥巴马政府核协议背后战略逻辑的一部分。
《联合全面行动计划》（JCPOA）在一段时间内对伊朗核计划施加了切实限制，从这个意义上说，这是一项成就。但它并未改变伊朗的地区行为或革命目标。在某些方面，获得新经济资源的德黑兰在协议达成后似乎愈发自信。
协议达成后不久，最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊驳斥了有关伊朗对以色列或美国的态度会软化的说法。他公开预言以色列将在25年内不复存在，并誓言将在整个地区继续抵抗。
和扎瓦希里一样，这番豪言壮语并非空洞的修辞表演。它与伊朗数十年来的发展轨迹相一致。
2023年10月7日是这一轨迹最清晰的体现。
由伊朗多年来武装、资助和支持的哈马斯发动了以色列历史上最致命的袭击，造成1200多人死亡，250多人被劫持为人质。世界上大多数政府都谴责了这一暴行。伊朗领导层却对此表示庆祝，并将其称为对以色列的抵抗。
几天之内，伊朗支持的地区各组织纷纷加入冲突。真主党从黎巴嫩向以色列北部发射火箭弹。伊朗支持的伊拉克和叙利亚民兵多次袭击美军。也门胡塞武装开始在红海 targeting 商业航运和美国海军资产。
所有这些都反映了伊朗数十年来对一个网络的投入，该网络的建立正是为了实现这一目的：通过多条战线向以色列和美国施压，同时保持不同程度的可否认性。
在以色列未直接袭击伊朗之前，伊朗最终从伊朗本土发动了两次前所未有的直接导弹和无人机袭击。
特朗普是首位直接 targeting 伊朗高级军事领导人，并随后授权在伊朗本土开展军事行动的总统。
其中一些行动产生了切实的战术成果。2020年击毙圣城旅指挥官卡西姆·苏莱曼尼打乱了伊朗的地区行动。随后对伊朗军事基础设施和核设施的打击严重削弱了伊朗部分导弹、无人机和核项目。
但仅靠战术上的军事成功并不能带来战略成果。
事实上，过去几个月的事件凸显了仅靠军事力量对抗根深蒂固的革命体系的局限性。尽管遭受重创，伊朗政权似乎已巩固，像新任伊斯兰革命卫队领导人艾哈迈德·瓦赫迪这样的强硬派意识形态者占据了领导职位——瓦赫迪在20世纪80年代和90年代的大部分时间里领导圣城旅。
美国的战术——军事、外交、经济——可以有效削弱伊朗的能力，但事实证明，它们完全无法改变伊朗政权本身的意识形态路线。
即便有协议即将达成的传言，伊朗新任最高领袖仍重申了其已故父亲的目标：将美国逐出中东，消灭以色列国。“从现在起，”他本周写道，“美国去死，以色列去死将成为伊斯兰乌玛的共同口号。”
他还进一步重申了已故父亲的誓言，要在2040年前消灭以色列——这番豪言壮语以色列别无选择，只能认真对待。
反过来，以色列可能会在今年晚些时候的选举后迎来新政府，但10月7日事件后其更为积极主动的安全政策不太可能改变。无论威胁发生在其边境附近还是伊朗境内，包括针对伊朗的导弹计划，以色列都会采取行动应对威胁。
美国也将采取行动保卫自身及其利益。本周，尽管华盛顿和德黑兰就在重新开放霍尔木兹海峡进行谈判，伊斯兰革命卫队仍被发现于海峡内布设新水雷，引发了军事交火。
这一现实——伊朗明确的意识形态、以色列打击 perceived 威胁的倾向，以及美国保护自身利益和人员的行动——将给特朗普及其继任者带来持续挑战。除非伊朗发生政治变革，否则我们应预计会出现对抗、暂时降级和再次对抗的循环往复。
Iran’s forever war: Deal or no deal, Iran’s challenge to America will outlast Trump
2026-05-28T04:00:07.838Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/28/politics/iran-forever-war-outlast-trump-mcgurk-analysis
- For nearly five decades, American presidents have tried different approaches to Iran, yet the conflict persists because of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary ideology.
- Iran’s constitution assigns its Revolutionary Guard an ideological mission that has driven attacks, hostage-taking and proxy warfare since 1979.
- Even as President Donald Trump negotiates a potential deal, Iran’s new Supreme Leader reaffirms his commitment to eliminate Israel and eject America from the Middle East.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
Brett McGurk is a CNN global affairs analyst who served in senior national security positions under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Shortly after I landed in Baghdad for the first time in January 2004, US intelligence services intercepted a letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. The letter discussed the use of ruthless violence to establish an Islamic caliphate— first inside Iraq and ultimately across the broader Middle East.
“The greatest battle of Islam in this era is now being waged,” Zawahiri wrote.
The United States publicized the letter, but few took seriously the idea that al Qaeda could carve out and govern territory across the heart of the Arab world.
Ten years later, I was back in Baghdad as Zarqawi’s successor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, conquered Iraq’s second-largest city and declared a caliphate spanning territory the size of Indiana with millions living under its rule. We spent the next decade dismantling it.
The lesson stayed with me: When leaders openly declare long-term ideological objectives and repeatedly demonstrate a willingness to use violence to achieve them, take them seriously.
That lesson applies to Iran.
For nearly five decades, American presidents of both parties have approached Iran with different combinations of diplomacy, sanctions, deterrence and military force. Yet the conflict between the United States and the Islamic Republic persists because the central driver of Iran’s behavior has remained remarkably constant: the revolutionary ideology of the Islamic Republic itself.
The debate in Washington often focuses on tactics. Democrats tend to prioritize diplomacy and cite President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran as the best available mechanism to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions and avoid war. Republicans often favor “maximum pressure” campaigns and military deterrence, arguing Iran exploits diplomatic arrangements while continuing regional aggression.
Both arguments contain elements of truth. Neither fully explains the continuity of the problem.
The throughline is not shifting political winds in Washington, but rather the enduring nature of the Iranian regime and the objectives embedded in the Islamic Republic since 1979.
Nothing that President Donald Trump is now reportedly discussing with Iran — a transactional deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and perhaps impose new nuclear limits — would alter what has been a fixed 47-year course.
Iran’s constitution assigns the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, not merely a defensive military role but what it calls an “ideological mission of jihad in God’s way.” Over decades, Iran’s revolutionary leadership has interpreted that mission as extending Iranian influence across the Middle East, expelling the US from the region, and supporting armed movements committed to Israel’s destruction.
Those goals have transcended American and Iranian presidents, economic crises, sanctions campaigns, and diplomatic openings.
They explain the pattern of attacks, hostage-taking, terrorism, and proxy warfare that has defined Iran’s relationship with the US since the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. They also explain Iran’s sustained investment in militant organizations across the region, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Iraqi militias and the Houthis.
The IRGC was specifically designed to guard the revolution at home and advance it abroad. Its expeditionary arm, the Quds Force, spent decades building networks of armed partners capable of projecting Iranian influence far beyond Iran’s borders.
At various moments, American policymakers hoped Iran’s revolutionary zeal might moderate in exchange for economic opportunity and reintegration into the international system. That hope was part of the strategic logic behind the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement.
The JCPOA placed meaningful constraints on Iran’s nuclear program for a period and in that sense was an achievement. But it did not alter Iran’s regional conduct or revolutionary aims. In some respects, Tehran — flush with new economic resources — appeared increasingly confident afterwards.
Shortly after the agreement was concluded, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dismissed suggestions that Iran’s posture toward Israel or the US would soften. He publicly predicted that Israel would not exist within 25 years and vowed continued resistance throughout the region.
Like Zawahiri, that boast was not rhetorical theater. It aligned with the trajectory Iran had followed for decades.
October 7, 2023, represented the clearest manifestation yet of that trajectory.
Hamas — armed, financed, and supported by Iran over many years — launched the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, killing more than 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. Most governments around the world condemned the atrocities. Iran’s leadership instead celebrated them and what it described as resistance against Israel.
Within days, Iranian-backed groups across the region joined the conflict. Hezbollah began firing rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria launched repeated attacks against American forces. The Houthis in Yemen began targeting commercial shipping and American naval assets in the Red Sea.
All of this reflected decades of Iranian investment in a network designed precisely for this purpose: applying pressure against Israel and the US through multiple fronts while maintaining varying degrees of deniability.
Iran eventually launched two unprecedented direct missile and drone attacks against Israel from Iranian territory itself — before Israel had directly attacked Iran.
Trump is the first president to directly target senior Iranian military leadership and later authorize military operations inside Iranian territory itself.
Some of those actions produced tangible tactical results. The killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 disrupted Iran’s regional operations. Subsequent strikes against Iranian military infrastructure and nuclear facilities significantly degraded parts of Iran’s missile, drone and nuclear programs.
But tactical military success alone does not produce strategic outcomes.
Indeed, the events of the past few months have underscored the limits of military power alone when confronting a deeply entrenched revolutionary system. While battered, Iran’s system appears to have consolidated with leading roles for hardened ideologues like Ahmad Vahedi, the IRGC’s new leader — who led the Quds Force through much of the 1980s and 1990s.
American tactics — military, diplomatic, economic — can be effective at degrading Iranian capabilities, but they have proven wholly ineffective at changing the ideological course of the Iranian regime itself.
Even with rumors of a deal around the corner, Iran’s new Supreme Leader doubled down on his late father’s aims to eject America from the Middle East, and to eliminate the state of Israel. “From now on,” he wrote this week, “Death to America, and Death to Israel will be the common slogans of the Islamic Ummah.”
For good measure, he reaffirmed his late father’s vow to see Israel eliminated by the year 2040 — a boast Israel has no choice but to take seriously.
Israel, in turn, may have a new government following elections later this year, but its more proactive security doctrine after October 7 is unlikely to change. It will act on threats as they arise, whether close to its borders or within Iran itself including against Iran’s missile program.
The United States will also act to defend itself and its interests. This week, even as Washington and Tehran negotiated to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the IRGC was caught laying new mines in the Strait — leading to a military exchange.
This reality — Iran’s defining ideology, Israel’s penchant to act against perceived threats and America’s protection of its own interests and personnel — will create ongoing challenges for Trump and his successor. Until there is political change in Iran, we should expect a recurring cycle of confrontation, temporary de-escalation and renewed confrontation.