2026-08-03T04:01:25.520Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran-war-troops-punish
执行唐纳德·特朗普总统对伊朗战争的美军司令部一名高级军官在邮件中提出了这一要求：我们需要各类构想。
据熟悉该邮件内容的消息人士透露，美国中央司令部情报部门的一名军官周三向大批军事分析师发送讯息称：“我们正在寻求新的、创新性非常规手段，向伊朗施压并予以惩戒。” 另有消息人士称，美国一名高级军官上周也发送了类似邮件，征集应对伊朗的新方案。
军方官员表示，这种众包式的征询通过邮件发起的情况并不常见，这也反映出特朗普政府希望迫使伊朗按照美方条件达成协议的可用选项有限，且可能难以接受。为寻找替代方案，中央司令部的这名官员通过邮件发起头脑风暴，看看是否有人能提出更好的办法。第二位消息人士称，中央司令部正在全面审视所有选项，承认需要重新评估当前战略。
“美国中央司令部向来以创新思维和创新工作方式著称，”中央司令部发言人蒂莫西·霍金斯上尉在一份声明中表示。“尤其是库珀上将，无论职级高低，都会向我们优秀团队的成员征询意见，以尽可能实现最高水平的作战效能。”
特朗普此前威胁将对伊朗发动新的空袭，随后在周末取消了行动，此前地区官员——特别是沙特王储——致电总统，敦促他缓和局势，这封邮件就发送于此事之前。
数周以来，美国一直在对伊朗实施空袭，旨在削弱伊朗威胁霍尔木兹海峡航运的能力，并迫使德黑兰回到谈判桌前，但目前仍无达成协议的迹象。
特朗普一直在考虑强化军事行动，可能会重新对伊朗剩余的核设施发动密集空袭。他曾声称这些设施在去年夏天的空袭中已被“彻底摧毁”。两名熟悉相关计划的消息人士称，美军一直在积极准备对“斧山”及其他被认为存放核材料或核设备的伊朗目标发动空袭。
但这些消息人士指出，即便动用美国最强大的常规武器，仅靠导弹和炸弹也不太可能达成目标，因为这些设施深埋地下。要摧毁它们，美国可能需要派遣地面部队——这是特朗普一直不愿承担的巨大风险，加之其政府在美军人员伤亡问题上的透明度饱受质疑。目前已有18名美军官兵在战斗中阵亡。
另一位消息人士称，特朗普一直在考虑类似“烟花秀”的打击行动，可能会袭击一年前打击过的相同或类似目标，希望通过象征性的胜利，让他既能结束战争，又不必实现其最初目标之一：解除伊朗的核计划。
而这几乎不可能解决这场战争的核心争议：伊朗对霍尔木兹海峡的主权主张。
“归根结底，总统想要达成一份协议，所以他会不断寻找强硬施压同时脱身的办法，”一位熟悉近期策划讨论的消息人士说道。“有时你需要创新性思维——尤其是在常规手段即将耗尽的情况下。”
美国中央情报局和国防情报局近日均评估认为，美国目前实施的这类空袭不太可能改变伊朗的谈判立场，美国有线电视新闻网此前曾报道。
总统最高级军事顾问、参谋长联席会议主席丹·凯恩将军公开承认，仅靠空袭不太可能实现特朗普此前为这场战争设定的所有目标。
“空中力量有其局限性，”凯恩上月对议员们表示。
升级冲突的多个方案已提交给特朗普数月之久，并经过了详尽辩论，更多军事资产也已调往该地区，等待总统批准。美国官员称，中央司令部提出的一项计划涉及在一到两周内实施密集轰炸，以摧毁伊朗的导弹能力。
迄今为止特朗普一直持观望态度，部分原因是凯恩曾提及防空拦截弹库存日益减少的问题。其他官员也对风险提出了担忧：如果特朗普兑现威胁，袭击桥梁和海水淡化厂等基础设施目标，可能会造成大量平民伤亡。
特朗普可以选择派遣美军地面部队升级行动，他曾多次发出这一威胁，并称将占领具有战略意义的哈尔克岛或移除伊朗的高浓缩铀。但这将进一步违背他向“让美国再次伟大”阵营作出的一项关键承诺：“我不会让你们卷入永无止境的愚蠢外国战争中作战和牺牲，”他2024年在宾夕法尼亚州的竞选集会上曾如此说道。
或者，他也可以接受危险的现状：与伊朗陷入无休止的空袭与反空袭循环，这可能会造成更多美军人员伤亡，并让霍尔木兹海峡持续处于高度危险的状态，类似于他曾批评的“永久战争”。
“我认为我们就是想取胜，”周五在内阁会议上被问及结束战争时特朗普说道。“我们会对他们施以重击，你知道，总有一天他们会说，‘我们再也受不了了。’”
Exclusive: US military asks troops for ‘creative and unconventional’ ideas to punish Iran
2026-08-03T04:01:25.520Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran-war-troops-punish
The request from a senior officer at the US military command carrying out President Donald Trump’s war with Iran came in an email: We need ideas.
“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” an officer in US Central Command’s intelligence branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message. A second source also said that a senior US military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.
The crowdsourcing-style query, which military officials said was unusual over email, is one sign of the limited — and potentially unpalatable —options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms. Hoping to find an alternative, the official at CENTCOM kicked off the brainstorming session via email to see if anyone had a better idea. The second source said CENTCOM is looking at everything, acknowledging it needs to reevaluate the strategy.
“U.S. Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,” Capt. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, said in a statement. “Admiral Cooper, in particular, reaches out to members of our great team, regardless of rank, to achieve the highest levels of operational performance possible.”
The email preceded Trump’s threat to launch new strikes against Iran, only to call them off over the weekend weekend after regional officials — namely Saudi Arabia’s crown prince — intervened by calling the president and urging him to de-escalate.
For weeks, the US has hammered Iran with air strikes designed to degrade its ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table, but there’s still no sign of a deal.
Trump has been weighing intensifying the military campaign, potentially by relaunching intense strikes on Iran’s remaining nuclear facilities, which he claimed had been “obliterated” in strikes last summer. Two sources familiar with the planning say the military has been actively preparing to launch strikes on Pickaxe Mountain and other Iranian sites believed to contain either nuclear material or equipment.
But even with America’s most powerful conventional weapons, those sources say, missiles and bombs alone are unlikely to achieve much because the facilities are buried deeply underground. To destroy them, the US would likely need to use ground troops — a tremendous risk that Trump has been unwilling to take — amid questions about his administration’s transparency over service member casualties. Eighteen US service members have been killed in the fighting so far.
Trump has been considering strikes akin to a “fireworks” display, another source said, which could hit either the same or similar sites as those targeted a year ago, in the hopes of a symbolic victory that would allow him to exit the war without actually accomplishing one of his initial aims: ridding Iran of its nuclear program.
And it’s unlikely that would resolve what has become the war’s central issue: Iranian claims over the Strait of Hormuz.
“At the end of the day, POTUS will want a deal, so he’ll continually look for ways to get tough and get out of this,” said one of the sources familiar with recent planning discussions.
“You need creative minds at times — especially if you’re running out of conventional options.”
Both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency have recently assessed that the kind of bombing the US is carrying out is unlikely to shift the Iranian negotiating position, CNN has reported.
The president’s most senior military adviser, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, has acknowledged publicly that bombing alone is unlikely to accomplish all Trump’s previously stated objectives for the war.
“Air power has its limits,” Caine told lawmakers last month.
Options for escalating the conflict have been presented to Trump for months and debated at length, and more military assets have flowed to the region in anticipation of a go-ahead from the president. One plan conceived by CENTCOM would involve heavy bombardment over the course of one or two weeks to take out Iran’s missile capabilities, US officials said.
Trump has so far held off, in part after hearing concerns from Caine about dwindling supplies of air defense interceptors. Other officials have also raised worries about the risks of high civilian casualties if Trump followed through on threats to strike infrastructure sites like bridges and water desalination plants.
Trump could escalate by putting American boots on the ground, a threat he’s made repeatedly as he’s talked about occupying the strategic Kharg Island or removing Iran’s highly enriched uranium. But that would further break a key promise he made to his MAGA base: “I will not send you to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never ends,” he said during a 2024 campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Or he could accept a dangerous status quo: endless rounds of strikes and counterstrikes with Iran that are likely to cost further American lives and leave the Strait of Hormuz in a state of constant peril that could resemble the “forever wars” he has criticized.
“I think we just want to win,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Friday when asked about concluding the war. “We’ll be hitting them very hard, and you know, at some point, they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore.’”