3小时前 / 发布于2026年3月10日，美国东部时间凌晨12:01 / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普一生都在试图摆脱困境。但在与伊朗的战争中，他用来拖延清算的惯用伎俩——制造混乱——开始失效。
战争进入第十天，特朗普仍未就自己为何发动战争给出一致的理由。现在，他暗示和平可能即将到来——尽管他和高级助手同时警告，战斗可能会更加激烈且持续更久。
这种信息传递上的脱节，不仅源于特朗普铺天盖地的言论和对自身行动评头论足的怪异倾向，更反映了政治和军事压力正快速升级，给这位将自己的政治遗产押在这场引发全球能源和地缘政治危机的战争上的总统带来重压。
股市下跌和油价飙升，使人们担心长期冲突可能摧毁全球经济。伊朗对海湾国家进行了数日的报复性无人机和导弹袭击，加剧了人们对更广泛冲突的担忧。
美国国内的政治时钟也在加速滴答作响，特朗普及其盟友担心，冲突的余波会加剧生活成本的痛苦，威胁共和党的中期选举前景。
特朗普再次试图解释这场战争
随着时间推移，特朗普的战争目标——尽管它们可能难以捉摸——似乎越来越与其政治地位不相容，民意调查显示，大多数美国人从未希望再次卷入战争。
因此，特朗普周一再次尝试向美国人解释为什么他们的军队在中东参战。
在佛罗里达州的新闻发布会上，他毫无证据地声称，如果他没有对伊朗发动攻击，伊斯兰共和国将接管整个中东。毫无疑问，如果伊朗拥有弹道导弹和核武器，将对以色列和世界其他地区构成生存威胁。但特朗普没有提供任何证据证明伊朗正接近这一状态。
事实上，许多分析人士认为，战争爆发的一个原因是伊朗处于伊斯兰共和国近50年历史上最虚弱的时期。以色列已经重创了其地区代理人哈马斯和真主党，制裁使其经济和社会濒临崩溃。
特朗普似乎也明白美国人的耐心有限。他坚持说：“我们大大提前于时间表。”并吹嘘这场战争是经济上的赢家。
“我们将一劳永逸地消除所有这些威胁。其结果将是油价降低——对美国家庭来说是石油和天然气价格降低，”特朗普坚称。“这只是一次不得不进行的短暂行动。我们也即将完成这项任务。”
但他也多次用过去时态谈论这场战争，仿佛希望它已经结束。
特朗普必须回答的一个令人不安的问题
特朗普这场“战争迷雾”的言辞，与有条不紊、无情推进、给伊斯兰共和国战争机器造成灾难性打击的美国和以色列空袭形成鲜明对比。这些计划是数十年精心制定的。相比之下，特朗普的领导方式每小时都在变化。
在紧急情况下，这场混乱的信息传递或许有合理的解释。
例如，美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）周一报道称，白宫正在考虑一项复杂且风险极高的任务，以取回伊朗的高浓缩铀。也许特朗普正在试图在未来可能的升级前迷惑敌人。
或者，他暗示战争即将停止，可能是一种精明的策略，以减轻政治和经济压力。他周一下午告诉哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）新闻记者，这场战争“非常完整”。几分钟内，油价回落，股市削减跌幅，这似乎并非巧合。
但随着冲突进入第二周，关键问题不一定是特朗普是否希望结束战争，而是他是否能够结束战争。
首先，美国必须评估其军事行动是否充分削弱了伊朗威胁其邻国以及美国在欧洲的盟友、最终威胁美国本土的能力。目前尚无独立的战斗损失报告。但特朗普可能有理由认为，这次袭击已经削弱了伊朗的导弹、核和无人机项目，以及其残暴政权的军事基础设施。
这本身就能消除对以色列的生存威胁，并可能使世界更安全。而且，美国特种部队成功突袭并取出伊朗的浓缩铀，将使伊朗重建核计划的任何尝试推迟数年。
特朗普是否愿意放弃政权更迭？
但特朗普面临着关于战争结局的更根本问题。
简而言之：这场战争是为了推翻伊朗政权，还是仅仅为了消除其当前威胁？
特朗普经常暗示前者。
- 暗杀最高领袖阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊，似乎是在试图进行政权更迭。
- 同时，特朗普多次要求伊朗政府无条件投降。
- 他还提出了一个不太可能但决定性的角色——选择德黑兰的新领导人。
- 他还考虑了一种可能：通过傀儡领导人从远处统治伊朗，类似委内瑞拉的情景。
这些可能性似乎极不可能，而且反映出他对一个可能受压迫但具有强烈民族主义倾向的国家内部权力动态的误解。
无论从哪个角度衡量，德黑兰当前的政治现实都远未达到特朗普的目标。伊斯兰政权在牺牲本国人民方面从未犹豫，特别是在1980年代的两伊战争期间。对该政权而言，生存即胜利。
在对政府设施进行数天空袭和大量生命损失后，没有人能从外部知晓其真实状态。
但到目前为止，这次行动仅成功地将一位年迈且无继承计划的哈梅内伊替换为另一位同姓的年轻版本。
伊朗神职人员向特朗普发出的信号
选择穆罕默德·哈梅内伊（Mojtaba Khamenei）接替其殉道的父亲成为最高领袖，是神权政治和伊斯兰革命卫队发出的反抗信号，他们铁腕统治着伊朗。
目前尚不清楚哈梅内伊在这种极端情况下如何巩固权力。他的健康状况也不明。据信，他在杀死父亲、母亲和其他亲属的袭击中受伤。但理论上，哈梅内伊可能统治未来数年。
当然，考虑到以色列暗示将试图杀死他，哈梅内伊的预期寿命可能以小时计算。但他的继位是对特朗普要求选择伊朗领导人或产生一个愿意与其达成协议的新统治者的回应。
“这不是一个可以通过暗杀推翻的政权，”卡内基国际和平基金会的伊朗问题专家卡里姆·萨贾德普尔周一告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）的艾琳·伯内特。“这是一个现在已站稳脚跟的政权。他们相信要么杀人要么被杀，我认为他们会为他找到替代者。”
历史表明，往往无法提前识别革命何时酝酿——例如，美国对苏联解体感到意外。但目前没有迹象表明，特朗普试图引发的伊朗民众反抗腐败和镇压统治的起义即将发生。
也许美国和以色列对伊朗经济和能源基础设施的袭击，会极大削弱政权的根基，即使神职人员暂时坚持，未来数月和数年内也可能爆发反抗。但这需要伊朗平民走上街头，对抗在美军突袭后寻求复仇的无情安全部队。就在几周前，数千人在一次被挫败的起义中丧生。战争的意外结果更可能是更多镇压而非自由的绽放。
特朗普还面临紧迫的战略困境。他是否会使用武力试图打开霍尔木兹海峡——世界至关重要的石油通道，而伊朗已几乎封锁了它？政权的生存是否会导致美国和以色列与伊朗之间几乎永久性的战争状态，需要定期升级以防止伊斯兰共和国重建威胁？
这有先例。1990-91年海湾战争后，美国飞行员多年在伊拉克南部巡逻禁飞区。历届美国政府在伊拉克和叙利亚对伊斯兰国进行了反恐行动。
阿富汗战争前美国高级顾问塞思·琼斯将其与以色列在加沙对哈马斯和黎巴嫩真主党的多年行动相提并论。“我只是认为我们离结束这场战争还很远，”他告诉CNN的伯内特。
这或许揭示了特朗普混乱战争信息的原因。
总统可能希望战争结束，但他可能知道这并不可能。
Why Trump can’t explain the start — or the endgame — of the war in Iran
3 hr ago / PUBLISHED Mar 10, 2026, 12:01 AM ET / CNN
President Donald Trump has spent a lifetime talking himself out of tough spots. But in the war with Iran, his trusty technique of sowing confusion to postpone reckonings is beginning to fail.
Ten days in, Trump still hasn’t settled on a consistent rationale for why he went to war. Now, he’s hinting that peace might soon be at hand — even while he and top aides simultaneously warn the fighting might get more intense and last longer.
The messaging disconnect goes beyond Trump’s flood-the-zone rhetoric and odd tendency to commentate on his own actions. It reflects fast-escalating political and military pressures bearing down on a president who gambled his legacy on a war that has spawned a global energy and geopolitical crisis.
Tumbling stock markets and spiking oil prices have raised the possibility that a prolonged conflict could shatter the global economy. Days of Iranian retaliatory drone and missile strikes on Gulf states stoked fears of a wider conflagration.
The political clock is now ticking faster inside the United States, where Trump and his allies fret reverberations will worsen the cost-of-living misery that threatens the GOP’s midterm election prospects.
Trump tries again to explain the war
With each passing day, Trump’s war aims — as impenetrable as they may be — seem ever more incompatible with his political stature as polls show majorities of Americans never wanted to go to war again.
So Trump had another stab Monday at explaining to Americans why their troops are at war in the Middle East.
At a Florida news conference, he argued — without evidence — that if he hadn’t launched the attack on Iran, the Islamic Republic would have taken over the entire Middle East. There’s no doubt that Iran, if armed with ballistic missiles and a nuclear weapon, would represent an existential threat to Israel and the rest of the world. But Trump has produced no evidence to show it was anywhere near that point.
In fact, many analysts believe one reason the war erupted was that Iran was weaker than at any time in the almost 50-year history of the Islamic Republic. Israel has already pummeled its regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, and sanctions had driven its economy and society to near breaking point.
Trump also seemed to understand that Americans’ patience is limited. He insisted, “We’re ahead of our timeline by a lot” and billed the war as an economic winner.
“We’re putting an end to all of this threat once and for all. And the result will be lower oil prices — oil and gas prices for American families,” Trump insisted. “This was just an excursion into something that had to be done. We’re getting very close to finishing that, too.”
But he also repeatedly spoke of the war in the past tense, as if he wished it were already over.
A jarring question Trump must answer
Trump’s rhetorical fog of war contrasts sharply with the methodical and relentless US and Israeli air campaign that is inflicting catastrophic damage on the Islamic Republic’s war machine. These are plans refined for decades. Trump’s leadership, in contrast, evolves by the hour.
There could, at a pinch, be rational explanations for the messaging mayhem.
Perhaps Trump is seeking to confuse the enemy ahead of possible future escalations: CNN reported Monday, for instance, that the White House was mulling a complex and risky mission to retrieve Iran’s highly enriched uranium.
Or his hints at an approaching combat halt could be a shrewd play to mitigate political and economic heat. He told a CBS News reporter on Monday afternoon that the war was “very complete.” Within minutes, oil prices eased and stock markets pared losses, which didn’t seem like a coincidence.
But as the conflict grinds through its second week, the key question is not necessarily about whether Trump wants to end the war, but whether he can.
First, the US must assess whether its operational gains have sufficiently degraded Iran’s capacity to threaten its neighbors and US allies in Europe and eventually the US mainland. There are so far no independent battle damage reports. But Trump may have a case that the assault degraded Iran’s missile, nuclear and drone programs and the military infrastructure of its brutal regime.
This alone pushes off an existential threat against Israel and may make the world safer. And a successful US special forces raid to pull out Iran’s enriched uranium would set back any attempt to reconstitute its nuclear program for many years.
Is Trump willing to walk away from regime change?
But there are more fundamental questions about the war’s endgame facing Trump.
In short: Was this a war about ending Iran’s regime, or just its current threat?
Trump has often implied the former.
- The assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei looked like an attempt at regime change in action.
- Trump, meanwhile, has several times demanded the total surrender of Iran’s government.
- He’s also pitched for an unlikely but decisive role in choosing a new leader in Tehran.
- And he’s mulled about the possibility of a Venezuela-style scenario where he might rule Iran from a distance through a puppet leader.
Such possibilities always seemed highly unlikely and betrayed a misunderstanding of the internal power dynamics of a nation that might be oppressed but also features a strong nationalist streak.
By any measure, Tehran’s current political reality is well short of Trump’s goals. And the Islamic regime has never had qualms about sacrificing its own people, notably during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. For the regime, survival means victory.
No one from the outside can know its true state after days of aerial pounding of government facilities and heavy loss of life.
But so far, the operation has succeeded only in replacing an aged supreme leader — who was already close to his eternal rest and had no succession plan — with a younger version with the same last name.
The message Iran’s clerics sent to Trump
The choice of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his martyred father as supreme leader was a signal of defiance from the theocracy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that rule Iran with an iron fist.
It remains unclear how Khamenei will be able to consolidate power in such extreme circumstances. His medical condition is also unclear. He was believed to have been injured in the strike that killed his father, mother and other relatives. But in theory, Khamenei could rule for years to come.
Of course, Khamenei’s life expectancy may be measured in hours given Israel’s hints that it will try to kill him. But his accession was a rebuke to Trump’s demands to choose Iran’s leaders or for it to produce a new ruler who’d do a deal with him.
“This is not a one-assassination regime,” Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday. “It is a regime that is dug in right now. They believe it is kill or be killed, and I think they will find a replacement for him.”
History shows that it’s often impossible to identify when revolutions are brewing in advance — the US was surprised, for example, when the Soviet Union fell. But there’s no outward sign that the uprising of Iranians against their corrupt and repressive rules that Trump sought to trigger is about to materialize.
Perhaps US and Israeli attacks on Iranian economic and energy infrastructure could so weaken the regime’s foundation that a revolt could materialize in the months and years ahead, even if the clerics cling on for now. But this requires Iranian civilians taking to the streets against ruthless security forces pining for revenge following the US onslaught. Only weeks ago, thousands were killed in a previous thwarted uprising. It seems just as likely that the unintended result of the war will be more repression rather than a flowering of freedom.
Trump also faces pressing strategic dilemmas. Will he use force to try to open the Strait of Hormuz — the world’s vital oil conduit, which has been all but closed by Iran? And would the survival of the regime lead to an almost permanent state of simmering warfare between the US and Israel and Iran that requires regular escalations to prevent the Islamic Republic rebuilding its threat?
There’s precedent here. After the 1990-91 Gulf War, US pilots spent years patrolling no-fly zones in the south of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Successive US administrations conducted anti-terror campaigns in Iraq and Syria against ISIS.
Seth Jones, a former senior US adviser in the Afghan war, drew an analogy with Israel’s years of operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “I just don’t think we are close to this being over,” he told CNN’s Burnett.
Perhaps this gets at the reason for Trump’s confusing war messaging.
The president might want it to be done — but he likely knows it isn’t.