2026-09-08T04:01:30.177Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
六位消息人士透露，近期美军及情报界各办公室内正悄然展开讨论：若特朗普政府成功终结伊朗冲突，将削减通常部署在中东的人员与设施数量。
若这些削减计划得以实施，将标志着美国国家安全机构对该地区的政策再次转变——历任美国总统都曾试图摆脱这一地区。
2001年9月11日恐怖袭击事件发生后，美国大幅扩建了遍布多国的永久性军事和情报设施网络，以在伊拉克、阿富汗、叙利亚、伊朗、也门、利比亚六国开展作战与打击行动。
但近期与伊朗的冲突暴露了美国在中东基础设施的严重脆弱性：诸多基地已成为伊朗持续袭击的目标，而这场不得人心的战争已造成18名美军官兵阵亡。
参与军方和情报界非正式讨论的官员表示，他们如今至少部分是在预判，怎样的举措能让这位善变的总统接受——多位消息人士称，总统尚未明确阐明战后未来的战略，且他过去一直以削减海外美军作为自身政治立场的核心。
尽管目前中东仍驻扎有5万名美军官兵及大量军事资产，包括两艘航母和十余艘导弹驱逐舰，但相关讨论仍在进行。其中一位消息人士透露，今年早些时候冲突最激烈阶段被撤回的中情局特工正被派回该地区。
两位熟悉相关讨论的消息人士称，美国军方也在评估如何加强留守部队的防御，即便战争结束后仍将如此。其中一项措施是将部分设施迁至地下，以更好抵御伊朗在长达数月的冲突中使用的导弹和无人机袭击。
尽管五角大楼早就讨论过将部分基地迁至地下的方案，但在开战最初几周后，伊朗暴露了美军基地极易遭受无人机和导弹袭击的弱点，这一想法变得愈发紧迫。
“这些脆弱性一直为人所知，但美国从未紧急采取行动。”一位美国官员消息人士说道。
两位消息人士称，军方已制定多套可能的行动方案，最快将于明年调整美军在中东的部队结构——他们同时指出，在冲突持续期间放弃那些用于起降战机的战略据点并不合理。
美国国防部办公厅将相关问题转交美国中央司令部回应。截至CNN发稿前，中央司令部未予置评。中情局则拒绝置评。
当前讨论的背景是美国多次计划从中东撤军：自9·11事件以来，美国在中东进行了25年军事干预，期间多次承诺撤军却始终未能兑现。
早在9·11事件发生前数年，美军就开始大幅增加在中东的驻军规模，1998年起在该地区部署约2.7万名现役官兵，这一数字远高于此前数十年的水平。
9·11事件后，这一数字持续攀升：美军基地扩建以支持阿富汗战争、伊拉克战争，以及该地区多个热点地区不断扩散的反恐冲突。
9·11事件两年后，伊拉克战争期间美军在中东的驻军人数约达25万。根据公开估算数据，2007年至2011年间，该地区美军人数虽有波动，但从未低于约10万人。
2011年，时任总统巴拉克·奥巴马宣布阿富汗“战争浪潮正在消退”，美国将开始削减此前增派的数万名官兵。但美国又过了十年才完全撤出阿富汗。
同年，奥巴马从伊拉克撤出作战部队，试图让美国摆脱这场普遍被视为失败的战争，但随后因美国权力真空导致伊斯兰国（ISIS）崛起，美军被迫重返伊拉克。
即便2011年后美军在中东的总人数有所下降，仍维持在3万至6万之间。在此期间，伊朗构成的潜在威胁始终是美国政策制定者的心腹大患，尤其是那些在伊拉克发动致命袭击的伊朗代理武装。
尽管策划者如今正在讨论撤军方案，但美国似乎仍未接近与伊朗达成结束冲突的和解协议。伊朗仍在持续袭击美国在该地区的基地和驻军，上周两国交换火力近一个月来首次交火期间，伊朗向美国在约旦和阿联酋的设施发动了袭击。
美国官员称，袭击造成的损失惨重：据一位美国官员和一位前情报官员透露，中情局位于沙特阿拉伯利雅得的据点已被伊朗袭击彻底摧毁。尽管五角大楼官员试图淡化影响，但美国在巴林、卡塔尔、沙特阿拉伯和科威特的军事设施均遭到伊朗无人机和导弹袭击，消息人士称破坏程度十分严重。
两位美国官员透露，部分官员正在考虑，对于中情局和美军特种作战司令部的一些敏感任务，是否可以不依靠永久基地完成：将人员和装备驻扎在美国本土，执行任务时再派往中东，任务结束后返回国内。
一位官员及另外两位熟悉讨论的消息人士称，在某些情况下，美国政府可能干脆不会重建那些被伊朗袭击严重损毁的设施——部分原因是成本考量。
五角大楼官员公开拒绝透露将重建哪些设施。
今年4月，五角大楼预算主管朱尔斯·“杰伊”·赫斯特三世对记者表示，目前尚不清楚修复与伊朗战争中受损的基地和设施需要多少成本，“部分原因是我们将评估在中东应保持怎样的驻军态势”。
赫斯特随后补充道，五角大楼“尚未得出海外设施受损的最终数据”，这取决于“我们决定如何重建这些设施，或者是否重建”。
三位熟悉讨论的消息人士称，五角大楼高级官员私下明确表示，他们希望削减美国在多个海湾国家的驻军规模，作为将更多防务负担转移给地区伙伴的整体计划的一部分。
消息人士称，目前尚无正式程序或直接命令开展所谓的“部队态势评估”。军方和中情局各部门官员敏锐地意识到，即便美军仍在护送船只通过霍尔木兹海峡、发动对伊朗基础设施的袭击，并威胁打击可能进一步升级冲突的更多目标，唐纳德·特朗普总统素来以善变著称。
“是否存在一项隐性任务？是否有什么即将到来的事情需要我们做好准备？还是说我们只是处于待命状态？”另一位美国官员如此描述讨论的基调。
前情报官员和历史学家表示，9·11事件发生时，中情局正苦于寻找任务方向：其主要对手苏联已经解体。中情局内部有深入研究恐怖主义和中东问题的分析师，但人数不多。德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的情报历史学家杰弗里·罗格称，当时该机构在中东的工作人员可能仅有数百人。
9·11事件后，一切都变了。中情局大规模招募人员，组建了规模大得多的准军事军官队伍，这些人携带武器，与美军密切配合追捕恐怖分子——这与传统情报官员的形象截然不同，传统情报官员的任务是发展线人关系、收集机密情报。
但军方和情报机构都经历了在该地区长达二十年参与冲突的起起落落，两党总统都曾迫切希望摆脱这一地区。奥巴马曾试图推动将美国军事和情报资源“转向”亚洲；特朗普政府在其首届任期内发布的首份国家安全战略中，将中国列为美国最大的威胁。
但“转向”一词在国家安全圈子里成了一个 recurring joke（老生常谈的笑话）：接连不断的危机和政策决策——包括意外崛起的伊斯兰国，以及特朗普首届任内击毙伊朗高级将领卡西姆·苏莱曼尼——持续将美国重新拖回中东。
美国有线电视新闻网此前报道称，美国高级军事领导人近期警告特朗普，升级与伊朗冲突的军事行动不太可能实现他宣称的目标，总统转而选择加大经济施压力度，以期摧垮伊朗政权。
但目前尚无明确时间表表明该战略何时能见效，多位分析师认为，伊朗现任领导层可能愿意忍受数月的经济制裁，短期内不太可能屈服。
总体而言，五角大楼官员预计将保留该地区部分大型永久性军事基地，但重建这些设施可能取决于东道国是否愿意分担成本——成本可能高达数十亿美元，一位消息人士告诉CNN。该消息人士补充道，许多基地最初就是由所在国出资建造和维护的。
短期内，美国在邻国的部队和基地几乎肯定会继续遭受伊朗的袭击。
美国海军最高将领上周表示，官兵“近期内”不会返回第五舰队的传统驻地巴林。
“我们近期内不会重返那里。”美国海军作战部长达里尔·考德尔上将说道，“我只想把话说清楚。”
Military and intelligence officials discuss smaller presence in the Middle East as US looks for another post-9/11 strategy
2026-09-08T04:01:30.177Z / CNN
In offices across the military and in the intelligence community, there have been recent quiet discussions about cutting the number of people and facilities typically stationed in the Middle East if the Trump administration succeeds in ending the Iran conflict, six sources say.
If those cuts happen, it would mark another shift in how the US national security apparatus treats a region that successive presidents have sought to leave behind.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the US exponentially expanded a constellation of permanent military and intelligence facilities to fight wars and conduct strikes in half a dozen countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Libya.
But the recent fighting with Iran has laid bare deep vulnerabilities in the American infrastructure in the Middle East as many of those sites have become targets of repeated Iranian attacks in an unpopular war that has killed 18 American service members.
Officials involved in the informal discussions in the military and the intelligence community indicated they are now acting at least in part to predict what might be acceptable to a mercurial president who sources say has articulated no clear strategy for a postwar future — and who, in the past, has staked his political identity on reducing American forces overseas.
Those discussions are happening even as there are still 50,000 troops and a large number of military assets in the Middle East, including two aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers. CIA officers who were sent home during the hottest part of the fighting earlier this year are being sent back to the region, one of the sources said.
The US military is also evaluating how to harden its defenses for those troops who are expected to remain in the region, even once the war ends. That includes by moving some installations underground to better defend against missile and drone attacks like those launched by Iran in the monthslong conflict, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.
While the Pentagon has long discussed moving some bases in the region underground, the idea took on new urgency after the first weeks of war as Iran exposed how vulnerable they were to drone and missile attacks.
“The vulnerabilities were always known, but the US never acted on it with urgency,” said one of the sources, a US official.
The military has developed several potential courses of action for changing the US force structure in the Middle East as soon as next year, two of the sources said — noting it would not make sense to abandon those strategic locations for launching aircraft while the conflict is ongoing.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense directed questions to US Central Command. Central Command did not respond to a query from CNN before publication. The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment.
In the background of today’s discussion are the repeated planned pivots out of the region: 25 years of military intervention in the Middle East since September 11 with cycles of promises to pull back.
The US military started dramatically increasing its footprint in the Middle East in the years before 9/11, maintaining a presence of roughly 27,000 active-duty troops across the region starting in 1998 — significantly more than in the decades prior.
That number would only continue to grow after the September 11 attacks, as US basing grew to support first the war in Afghanistan, then Iraq, then a metastasizing series of counterterrorism conflicts in hot spots around the region.
Two years after the September 11 attacks, the US had an estimated 250,000 troops in the Middle East during the invasion of Iraq. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of Americans in the region fluctuated but never dropped below roughly 100,000, according to publicly available estimates.
In 2011, then-President Barack Obama announced that “the tide of war is receding” in Afghanistan and that the US would begin drawing down tens of thousands of troops whom he had surged to the fight. The US would not withdraw fully from Afghanistan for another decade.
That same year, Obama withdrew combat troops from Iraq in a bid to extricate the US from a war widely seen as a failure. But he was forced to return when the vacuum of American power arguably led to the rise of ISIS.
Even as the total of US troops in the Middle East dropped in the years following 2011, it still hovered between 30,000 and 60,000.Throughout that time, the potential threat from Iran also loomed large in the mind of US policymakers, in particular proxy groups that launched fatal attacks on American service members in Iraq.
Though planners are discussing options for potential cuts now, the US appears no closer to negotiating a settlement with Iran that would end the conflict. Iran continues to target US bases and forces deployed to the region, launching attacks against American installations in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates last week as the two sides exchanged fire for the first time in roughly a month.
The damage has been substantial, US officials say: The CIA’s outpost in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for example, was effectively destroyed by an Iranian attack, according to one US official and a former intelligence officer. Although Pentagon officials have sought to downplay the impact, American military installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have all been struck by Iranian drones and missiles, and sources say the damage has been significant.
For the CIA and the military’s elite special operations command, some officials have considered whether the same sensitive jobs can be done without permanent basing, according to two US officials: leave personnel and equipment stationed in the United States, send them to the Middle East for individual missions, then return home.
In some cases, the US government may simply decline to rebuild assets that were severely damaged or destroyed by Iranian attacks — in part due to cost considerations, one official and two other sources familiar with the discussions said.
Pentagon officials have publicly refused to say what they might rebuild.
In April, Pentagon comptroller Jules “Jay” Hurst III told reporters it was not clear how much it would cost to repair bases and facilities damaged from the war with Iran, “and part of it is we would assess what our posture should be in the Middle East.”
Hurst later added that the Pentagon does not “have a final number for what the damage is to our installations overseas,” and it depends “on how we decide to rebuild those, or if we do.”
Senior Pentagon officials have privately made clear they want to scale back the US military’s troop presence in several Gulf countries as part of a broader effort to shift more of the defense burden onto regional partners, according to three sources familiar with the discussions.
Sources said there was no official process or direct order to conduct what’s known formally as a force posture review. Officials within different parts of the military and the CIA are instead keenly aware that even as the military continues to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, launch attacks on Iranian infrastructure and threaten strikes against additional targets that would likely further escalate the conflict, President Donald Trump is known to change his mind quickly.
“Is there an implicit task? Is there something coming down the pike where we need to be prepared to go, or are we sitting forward just in case?” said another US official, describing the tone of the discussions.
The CIA was in search of a mission at the time of the 9/11 attacks, former officers and historians say: Its chief adversary, the Soviet Union, had fallen. There were analysts at the agency deeply steeped in terrorism and in the Middle East — but not many of them. Staff in the region probably numbered in the mere hundreds, according to Jeffrey Rogg, an intelligence historian at the University of Texas at Austin.
After 9/11, that all changed. The agency recruited heavily and grew a much larger cadre of paramilitary officers who carried guns and worked closely with the US military to hunt out terrorists — a contrast to the traditional picture of a case officer, who was tasked with developing source relationships and gathering secrets.
But both organizations lived through the ebbs and flows of a two-decade engagement in a region that presidents of both parties at times wanted desperately to leave behind. Obama sought to engineer a “pivot” of American military and intelligence resources to Asia; Trump’s administration in his first term ranked China as America’s biggest threat in his first national security strategy.
But the word “pivot” became a running joke in national security circles as successive crises and policy decisions — including the unforeseen rise of ISIS and Trump’s first-term decision to kill top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani — continued to suck the United States back into the Middle East.
Top US military leaders have recently warned Trump that combat options for escalating the conflict with Iran are unlikely to achieve his stated objectives, CNN has reported, with the president instead opting to focus on ramping up economic pressure in hopes of crippling the regime.
But there is no clear timeline for how long that strategy may take to produce results, and many analysts believe that Iran’s current leadership may be willing to endure months of economic pain and is unlikely to capitulate in the near term.
Broadly, Pentagon officials expect to maintain some of the large, permanent military bases in the region, but rebuilding those installations may depend on the host nation’s willingness to contribute to the cost, which would likely be in the billions of dollars, one of the sources told CNN. The source added that many were originally constructed and paid for by the country in which they reside.
In the short term, US troops and bases in neighboring countries will almost certainly face continued attacks from Iran.
The Navy’s top admiral said last week that personnel would not be returning to Bahrain, the traditional home of the 5th Fleet, “anytime soon.”
“We’re not getting back in there anytime soon,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said. “I just want to be completely honest with that.”