2026-07-09T04:00:25.590Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/politics/trump-iran-peace-deal-strait-analysis
唐纳德·特朗普总统在伊朗的困局，正开始类似一种名为彭罗斯阶梯的视错觉——看似不断上下攀升，最终却总会回到原点。
这场困境是特朗普一手造成的：他发动了一场从未承诺明确撤军路径的战争，还签署了一份未能解决冲突根源的谅解备忘录。
周三晚间，美国发动新空袭以报复德黑兰对霍尔木兹海峡航运的袭击，硝烟散尽后，特朗普再次陷入了熟悉的两难境地。
他是该升级战争——付出高昂的人力、经济和政治代价，以打破让伊朗占据最大优势的新现状？还是试图重启存在缺陷的停火协议，仅为谈判就向伊朗支付数十亿美元？
就在特朗普与德黑兰签署谅解备忘录三周后，此次最新冲突爆发。他此前曾称赞这份只有他才能达成的协议，而此次冲突凸显了迄今为止美国战争行动的全面徒劳。
实质上，特朗普发动新一轮导弹和空袭，是冒着开启第二场战争的风险，去纠正第一场战争造成的恶果——伊朗对霍尔木兹海峡的控制。
伊朗对航运的袭击，凸显了其保留这一优势的决心。除了压迫政权存续之外，这是其在战争中的主要战果。伊朗希望通过征收通行费，将这条关键的油气运输航线转化为收入来源。针对多艘船只的袭击似乎旨在迫使船舶只能沿其偏好的航线航行，以此确认其主导地位。
这些袭击以及美国的报复行动，似乎与谅解备忘录背道而驰。但这份由美国特使史蒂夫·维特科夫和特朗普女婿贾里德·库什纳团队谈判达成的文件，措辞过于模糊、缺乏执行机制，且对伊朗的意图过于轻信，因此它很快就失效也就不足为奇了。
特朗普在前往土耳其参加北约峰会的行程中怒称，该谅解备忘录如今“已经作废”，并痛斥伊朗“疯了”。但他又表示，如果谈判方愿意，他们可以继续谈判。他补充道：“在我们的协议框架下，他们永远不会制造核武器，但我不知道我们能否达成协议。我们或许可以不通过协议就做到这一点，因为你知道，那样更简单。”这番言论进一步加深了人们对其战略连贯性不足的印象。
倘若没有谁都未曾设想过的突破性方案，特朗普的选择空间将十分狭窄，且未必能奏效。
他可以下令大规模升级行动。虽然入侵伊朗难以想象，但他或许会考虑空袭伊朗民用基础设施或发电厂，或是入侵海峡沿岸沿海地区以击退伊朗军队。另一种可能是采取行动夺取伊朗的哈尔克岛石油枢纽。
但此举代价可能极其高昂，还可能引发经济反弹——而特朗普签署谅解备忘录时，正是特意解释称要避免此类经济反弹。若海军陆战队或特种部队突袭哈尔克岛，美军将面临高伤亡风险。尽管特朗普此前多有失策，但迄今为止，他并未效仿那些通过下令造成大量美军人员或平民伤亡来挽回自身公信力的总统。
任何美国的升级行动都不会在真空中进行。
扩大对伊朗的打击目标清单，可能会招致美国海湾盟友和美国地区基地遭到报复性袭击。油气设施可能成为攻击目标——这可能再次引发全球能源危机。
届时特朗普将面临国内的强烈反对，包括汽油价格再次上涨。而在战争期间，高油价曾重创其政治声望，并在中期选举前进一步恶化了本已岌岌可危的共和党选情。
甚至尚不清楚全面战争能否摧毁伊朗威胁海峡的能力，毕竟仅需几架无人机，就能从数英里外的发射地点阻断商业航运。
众议院军事委员会资深民主党议员亚当·史密斯周三在CNN节目中表示，特朗普的困境证明了那些呼吁他“彻底解决”伊朗问题的鹰派人士是错误的。“你根本无法，引用一下，‘彻底解决’问题，直到打垮伊朗，”史密斯说，“这从一开始就是发动这场战争的论调的致命缺陷。而如今我们已经陷入了这个泥潭。”
理论上，特朗普可以恢复对伊朗船只和港口的美国封锁，此前他已取消了根据谅解备忘录同意的石油制裁豁免。但在承受了数周的首次禁运之后，伊朗并未如特朗普所要求的那样“无条件投降”。
退役海军上将詹姆斯·斯塔夫里迪斯承认特朗普并无太多好的选择，他告诉CNN的吉姆·西亚托，特朗普的最佳行动方案或许是打击伊朗的经济目标。“我们本应势均力敌，但我们握有枪，”斯塔夫里迪斯说，“坦率地说，我认为我们不会攻占哈尔克岛，但我们可以封锁它。那将终结伊朗的经济。”
斯塔夫里迪斯同时也指出，此举可能招致伊朗的猛烈报复。但或许持续、沉重的经济压力，可能会迫使伊朗政权——尽管其对本国公民的苦难漠不关心——重新考虑，它能否无限期地承受经济崩溃带来的政治后果。
另一种可能性是特朗普干脆撒手不管，任由全球面对霍尔木兹海峡局势紧张的现实。这将意味着能源价格上涨，船舶通行既危险又成本高昂。市场或许会做出调整，但美国无法置身事外，免受经济后果影响——包括他用来衡量个人政绩的股市指数。
最终，市场上石油供应量的减少可能会严重耗尽储备库存。而对问题置之不理，将等同于让总统颜面尽失的失败，并破坏全球对美国实力的认知。伊朗可能会永久炫耀其从战争中获得的核心优势。
这一机遇如今价值连城，以至于伊朗新统治者不惜冒险达成一项协议，以换取美国解除数十亿美元的制裁和重建资金。由商界大亨领导的本届政府认为，人人都可以被经济利益说服——这一假设在乌克兰问题上已遭削弱，如今看起来愈发站不住脚。
但与此同时，伊朗的做法也伴随着严重风险。其策略过度可能会增强地区国家对美国强硬路线的支持。这也可能暗示伊朗政权内部存在分歧，新近崛起的民族主义伊斯兰革命卫队官员试图诋毁那些希望谈判的温和派同僚。
美国有限的选择，或许可以解释为何特朗普在下令周三的空袭后，很快又回到了威胁的老路上。
“如果再发生类似情况，局势会变得更糟，”他在社交媒体上写道。但在战争初期更持续、更猛烈的美以轰炸期间，伊朗并未屈服于此类警告。
在从土耳其返回的空军一号专机上，特朗普又搬出了他一贯的老一套说辞。
“他们不久前打来电话；他们非常想达成协议，”他说，再次提及他数月来反复提及的老调，但这一论调似乎从未成真。
有时，这位总统似乎不仅在与伊朗作战，也在与现实作战。
What options does Trump have now in Iran? Not many, and they’re all bad
2026-07-09T04:00:25.590Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/politics/trump-iran-peace-deal-strait-analysis
President Donald Trump’s Iran entanglement is beginning to resemble a visual illusion known as the Penrose stairs, which endlessly climb and descend but always end up in the same place.
The predicament is of Trump’s own making after he launched a war that never promised a definitive exit and crafted a memorandum of understanding that failed to address the reasons for the conflict.
He was left staring at a familiar dilemma as smoke cleared late Wednesday from new US air strikes to punish Tehran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Does he escalate the war — at a potentially high human, economic and political cost — to try to shatter a new status quo that hands Iran the most leverage? Or does he try to revive a flawed ceasefire that pays Iran billions just to talk?
The latest flare-up, just three weeks after Trump signed the MOU with Tehran that he hailed as a deal only he could make, underscored the broad futility of the US war effort so far.
In essence, by firing off a new flurry of missiles and air attacks, he risked starting a second war to correct the damage — Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz — that was caused by the first.
Iran’s attacks on shipping underscored its determination to preserve that leverage, which, apart from its repressive regime’s survival, was its major war gain. It wants to turn the critical oil and gas transit route into revenue by levying tolls. The strikes against several ships seemed intended to force vessels to navigate only along its preferred routes, confirming its dominance.
The attacks, and the US reprisals, appear to contradict the MOU. But the document — negotiated by the team of US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — is so vague, lacking in enforcement and credulous about Iran’s intentions that it’s hardly surprising it has already fizzled.
A furious Trump said on a trip to the NATO summit in Turkey that the MOU was now “over” and blasted Iran as “cuckoo.” But he said his negotiators could continue talking if they wanted. Deepening the impression of strategic incoherence, he added: “They’ll never build a nuclear weapon under our deal, but I don’t know if we’re going to have a deal. We may just do it without a deal because you know what, it’s easier.”
Absent some out-of-the-box plan no one has thought of, Trump’s options are narrow and might not work.
He could order a massive escalation. While an invasion of Iran is unthinkable, he might contemplate air attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure or power plants, or an invasion of coastal districts along the strait to drive back Iranian forces. Another possibility is an operation to seize Iran’s Kharg Island oil hub.
But the costs could be huge and might trigger the economic backlash he specifically explained he was trying to avoid in signing the MOU. A Marine or special forces assault on Kharg would risk high US casualties. For all his other missteps, Trump has not so far emulated presidents who tried to buy back their own credibility by ordering action that killed many US service personnel or civilians.
Any US escalation would not come in a vacuum.
Widening target lists in Iran would likely cause payback attacks on US Gulf allies and American regional bases. Oil and gas plants could be in the firing line — again with the possibility of igniting a global energy crisis.
Then Trump would face a backlash at home, including a return to high gasoline prices that helped pummel his political standing during the war and hurt already-perilous Republican Party prospects before the midterm elections.
It’s not even clear that full-scale war would destroy Iran’s capacity to threaten the strait, given that a few drones could halt commercial shipping from launch sites miles away.
Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said on CNN Wednesday that Trump’s predicament showed why hawks calling on him to “finish the job” in Iran were misguided. “You’re not going to be able to, quote, finish the job, unquote, to the point where it breaks Iran,” Smith said. “That was always the flaw in the argument for starting this war in the first place. And now we’re in that hole.”
In theory, Trump could restore the US blockade on Iranian ships and ports after already rescinding a waiving of oil sanctions agreed under the MOU. But after weeks enduring the first such embargo, Iran came nowhere near the “unconditional surrender” that Trump demanded.
Retired Adm. James Stavridis, while acknowledging that Trump didn’t have a great set of options, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that Trump’s best course of action may be to go after economic targets in Iran. “We are bringing a knife to a knife fight, but we’ve got a gun,” Stavridis said. “Frankly, I don’t think we’re going to conquer Kharg Island, but we could blockade it. That would be the end of the Iranian economy.”
Stavridis caveated his comment with the potential for severe Iranian retaliation. But perhaps sustained, painful economic pressure on Iran might force the regime, despite indifference to the suffering of its citizens, to consider whether it could indefinitely bear the political consequences of a ravaged economy.
One possibility might be for Trump to simply walk away, leaving the world with the reality of a contested Strait of Hormuz. That would mean more expensive energy and a dangerous and more expensive passage for ships. Markets might adjust. But he would not be able to insulate the US from economic consequences — including the stock indexes he uses as a barometer of personal success.
Eventually, a lower volume of oil on the market could critically deplete reserve stocks. And ignoring the problem would enshrine an embarrassing defeat for the president and wreck global perceptions of US power. Iran could flaunt its prime leverage from the war in perpetuity.
That opportunity is now so valuable that it has caused Iran’s new rulers to risk a deal that provided billions of dollars in waived US sanctions and reconstruction funds. Once again, the assumptions of an administration led by tycoons that everyone can be swayed by monetary gain — already undermined in Ukraine — look increasingly threadbare.
At the same time, however, Iran’s approach comes with serious risks. The potential overplaying of its hand could bolster regional support for any hardened US approach. It may also hint at divisions inside the regime, as newly elevated, nationalistic Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officials seek to discredit more moderate colleagues who want to negotiate.
The limited US options offer a potential explanation for why Trump, fresh from ordering Wednesday’s strikes, was soon back to making threats.
“If it happens again, it will get much worse,” he wrote on social media. But Iran didn’t cave to such warnings during the far more sustained and aggressive US and Israeli bombing earlier in the war.
On Air Force One on the way home from Turkey, Trump turned to another well-worn page of his playbook.
“They called a little while ago; they want to make a deal so badly,” he said, returning to a refrain he’s repeated for months, but that never seems to come true.
Sometimes, the president seems to be waging war not only on Iran but also on reality.