2026-09-03T09:00:29.639Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/trump-regime-change-iran
数月以来，唐纳德·特朗普总统一直在私下向其国家安全团队提出同一个问题：伊朗民众为何不推翻本国领导人？
战争伊始，他对此结果颇为笃定，因以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡向其保证，在一轮密集空袭后，德黑兰将爆发街头抗议。
据知情人士透露，其他美国官员看过情报评估后认为这种情况不太可能发生，对此并不确定，该问题在首轮空袭开始前曾引发激烈辩论。尽管如此，特朗普仍于2月底发动了这场冲突，并呼吁伊朗政府更迭。
战争爆发当晚，他在一段视频中对伊朗民众表示：“这可能是你们几代人仅有的一次机会。”
这一想法很快便淡出视野，取而代之的是与伊朗政权谈判重新开放霍尔木兹海峡这一更为紧迫的要务。到了6月，特朗普坚称自己“从未关心过伊朗的政权更迭”，声称自己正在与“非常理性的人”进行谈判，并表示美国试图推翻外国政府的做法“从未奏效”。
尽管发表了上述言论，但据知情人士透露，特朗普仍在纠结为何自己呼吁政府更迭的声音无人理会。
如今，霍尔木兹海峡的通航量仍低于战前水平，与伊朗的外交也陷入僵局，特朗普重拾了六个月前发动这场战争时所持的理念。
“伊朗民众何时会起身反抗？”他周二在社交媒体上问道。
这场战争似乎每月都会重复出现熟悉的模式，而此次转向政权更迭论调正是最新的既视感时刻。
在美伊连续三天互相发动空袭打破了本周相对平静的局面后，双方回到了今夏早些时候持续数周的报复性袭击循环中。
曾多次威胁要摧毁伊朗民用基础设施的特朗普周三表示，如有必要，他准备下令发动更大规模的打击。
“昨晚的袭击非常猛烈，我们随时都可以再次发动袭击，”他说道，同时也表示他认为新一轮冲突不会持续太久。
据官员透露，特朗普上月下令其特使停止与伊朗的谈判后，目前没有任何实质性的外交接触尝试。相反，特朗普表示他对当前的冲突态势感到满意，似乎并不急于达成持久的停火协议。
“我喜欢我们现在的处境，”他本周在社交媒体上写道，“我们几乎完全控制了霍尔木兹海峡，而他们的经济则全面崩溃。”
在未来两个月选民开始投票决定国会山权力平衡之际，特朗普阵营中的许多人都希望这场冲突能完全退居政治讨论的幕后。
尽管特朗普淡化了中期选举在其伊朗政策决策中的作用，但高级顾问和国会山的共和党盟友均已发出警告，称新一轮冲突将在选举日带来麻烦。
“我不知道他们还能承受多少，但不管怎样，这都无关紧要，”特朗普周三在谈到伊朗时说道，“我不会受到选举的影响。”
降低冲突关注度的想法与政府战略的转变不谋而合——试图切断德黑兰的资金来源，包括威胁对其最大贸易伙伴实施制裁。美国财政部尚未实施这些威胁中最严厉的处罚措施。
但特朗普团队试图切断伊朗经济生命线、加剧该国经济困境的部分考量，是为了引发幻想破灭的伊朗民众对本国领导人的不满。官员们私下承认，普通伊朗民众将首当其冲承受新制裁的冲击。
伊朗国内的经济阵痛已经显现。通胀飙升，食品价格每周都在上涨。伊朗货币里亚尔汇率暴跌。伊朗高级官员承认他们正面临一系列经济问题。
据国家媒体报道，伊朗总统马苏德·佩泽希基安在上周美国财政部宣布新制裁措施前曾表示：“对于这些问题的存在，我们深表歉意，因为我们正处于一场全面的经济、军事和安全战争之中。”
尽管如此，一些美国官员表示，几乎没有情报表明伊朗抗议者会走上街头推翻本国领导人，即便该国的经济形势日益严峻。
战争爆发前的美国情报评估结论是，美以联合行动不太可能导致政权更迭，而冲突爆发数月后，官员们表示伊朗政权并未失去对权力的掌控。
几十年来，西方的严厉制裁几乎没有削弱该政权，这与历届美国政府的期望背道而驰。相反，抗议活动遭到了严厉镇压，包括今年年初伊朗政府发动了伊斯兰共和国历史上最严厉的镇压行动之一。
分析人士表示，伊朗领导人非常清楚特朗普通过收紧经济制裁达成的目标。
“伊朗领导层并不孤立地看待这种经济施压运动，而是将其视为美国更广泛运动的一部分，这场运动在某个时刻还会包含国内动乱因素，并最终要么导致政权更迭，要么迫使伊朗与美国达成更优惠的条件，”国际危机组织的高级伊朗问题分析师哈米德雷扎·阿齐兹说道。
当被问及美国是否可能通过中央情报局武装试图推翻政权的伊朗异见人士时，特朗普含糊其辞。
“我很想告诉你，”他周三在椭圆形办公室说道，“但这么做不合适。”
即便在质问伊朗民众为何不起义之后，他也承认自己知道问题的答案。
“我理解他们的困境，”他说，“他们现在正遭到枪击。”
With diplomacy stalled, Trump returns to floating regime change in Iran
2026-09-03T09:00:29.639Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/trump-regime-change-iran
It’s a question President Donald Trump has privately been asking his national security team for months: Why aren’t the Iranian people toppling their leaders?
It was an outcome he seemed relatively certain of at the start of the war, convinced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that street protests would flare up in Tehran after an intensive round of strikes.
Other American officials, having read intelligence assessments suggesting that wasn’t likely, weren’t so sure, and the issue was hotly debated before the first strikes began, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, Trump launched the conflict in late February with a call for a government takeover.
“This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he advised the Iranian people in a video the night the war began.
The idea quickly faded from view, replaced by the more urgent imperative of negotiating with the regime to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. By June, Trump insisted he “never cared about regime change” in Iran, claiming he was in negotiations with “very rational people” and that American attempts at ousting foreign governments “never work.”
Those comments aside, Trump continued wondering why his calls for government overthrow went unheeded, people familiar with the matter said.
Now, with traffic through the strait still below pre-war levels and diplomacy with Iran at a standstill, Trump has returned to the concept he began the war with six months ago.
“When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?” he asked on social media Tuesday.
The pendulum swinging back to regime change advocacy was the latest déjà vu moment in a war that seems to cycle through familiar patterns in month-long increments.
A month-long period of relative calm was punctured this week after the United States and Iran traded strikes over three consecutive days, returning to the same sequence of retaliation that stretched on for weeks earlier this summer.
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilian infrastructure, said Wednesday he was prepared to order an even larger round of destruction if needed.
“It was a very heavy attack last night and we’re prepared to do another one any time we want,” he said, while also saying he did not believe the renewed fighting would last long.
There are currently no substantive attempts at returning to diplomacy after Trump ordered his envoys to halt their discussions with Iran last month, according to officials. Instead, Trump says he is content with the status of the conflict and sounds in no hurry to reach a durable conclusion to the fighting.
“I like our position now,” he wrote on social media this week, “with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing.”
Many in Trump’s orbit would prefer the conflict recede from the forefront of political conversation entirely for the next two months as voters begin to cast ballots that will decide the balance of power on Capitol Hill.
While the president has discounted the role the midterms are playing in his Iran decision-making, senior advisers and Republican allies on Capitol Hill have all issued warnings that renewed conflict would spell trouble on Election Day.
“I don’t know how much more they can take, but, you know, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter,” Trump said of Iran on Wednesday. “And I’m not affected by the election.”
The desire for a less visible conflict dovetailed with a shift in the administration’s strategy — to try choking off Tehran’s finances, including by threatening sanctions on its largest trading partners. The Treasury Department has yet to impose the biggest of those threatened penalties.
But part of the Trump team’s calculation in trying to cut off Iran’s financial lifelines — and worsen the country’s economic conditions — was to prompt anger among disillusioned Iranians toward their leaders. Officials privately acknowledge that average Iranians will bear the brunt of the new sanctions.
Already, the economic sting in Iran is real. Inflation has soared, and food prices are increasing by the week. The rial, Iran’s currency, has plunged in value. Iran’s top officials acknowledge they are suffering a host of economic problems.
“We are apologetic that these problems exist, as we find ourselves in a full-scale economic, military, and security war,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said before the new Treasury Department measures were announced last week, according to state media.
Still, some US officials said there was little intelligence to indicate a renewed likelihood that Iranian protesters would take to the streets to oust their leaders, even as the economic situation in the country grows increasingly dire.
American intelligence assessments before the war began concluded a joint US-Israeli operation was unlikely to lead to regime change, and months into the conflict officials said the regime had not lost its grip on power.
And decades of crippling western sanctions have done little to weaken the regime, against the hopes of successive American administrations. Protests have instead been met with fierce crackdowns, including at the start of this year when the Iranian government unleashed one of the worst crackdowns in the Islamic Republic’s history.
Analysts said Iran’s leaders were well attuned to Trump’s objectives in trying to tighten the noose economically.
“The Iranian leadership sees this kind of economic campaign of economic pressure not in isolation, but as part of a broader campaign by the United States, which at some point is going to also have an element of domestic unrest and eventually lead either to regime change or to bring Iran to better terms with the United States,” said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Trump was coy when asked this week whether the US, perhaps through the CIA, would arm Iranian dissidents looking to overthrow the regime
“I’d love to tell you that,” he said Wednesday in the Oval Office, “but it wouldn’t be appropriate to say.”
And even after questioning why Iranians weren’t rising up, he acknowledged he knew the answer to his own query.
“I understand their plight,” he said. “They’re being shot right now.”