Over the past two decades, the United States has used sanctions, sabotage, cyberattacks and diplomatic negotiations to try to slow what looked to most of the world like Iran’s long march to a nuclear weapon.

过去20年里，美国一直在使用制裁、破坏行动、网络攻击和外交谈判等手段，试图延缓伊朗在多数世人眼中迈向核武器的漫长进程。

At roughly 2:30 a.m. Sunday in Iran, President Trump unleashed a show of raw military might that each of his last four predecessors had deliberately avoided, for fear of plunging the United States into war in the Middle East.

周日凌晨2点30分左右，特朗普总统发动了一场其四位前任因担心将美国拖入中东战火而刻意回避的赤裸裸的武力展示。

After days of declaring that he could not take the risk that the mullahs and generals of Tehran who had survived Israel’s strikes would make a final leap to a nuclear weapon, he ordered a fleet of B-2 bombers halfway around the world to drop the most powerful conventional bombs on the most critical sites in Iran’s vast nuclear complexes.

几天来，他一直宣称，他不能冒险放任那些在以色列袭击中幸存下来的德黑兰毛拉和将军们完成最后一次飞跃，达到拥有核武器的地步。在此之后，他命令B-2轰炸机编队跨越大半个地球，向伊朗庞大的核设施中最关键的地点投下威力最大的常规炸弹。

The prime target was the deeply buried enrichment center at Fordo, which Israel was incapable of reaching.

首要目标是深埋在福尔多的浓缩中心，那里超出了以色列的打击能力。

For Mr. Trump, the decision to attack the nuclear infrastructure of a hostile nation represents the biggest — and potentially most dangerous — gamble of his second term.

对特朗普来说，决定攻击敌对国家的核基础设施是他第二个任期内最大的赌博，也可能是最危险的赌博。

He is betting that the United States can repel whatever retaliation Iran’s leadership orders against more than 40,000 American troops spread over bases throughout the region. All are within range of Tehran’s missile fleet, even after eight days of relentless attacks by Israel. And he is betting that he can deter a vastly debilitated Iran from using its familiar techniques — terrorism, hostage-taking and cyberattacks — as a more indirect line of attack to wreak revenge.

他赌的是无论伊朗领导人下令对驻扎在中东各处的4万多名美国驻军采取何种报复行动，美国都能将其击退。这些基地都在德黑兰导弹群的射程之内，即使是在以色列进行了八天持续攻击之后。他更是在赌美国可以阻止元气大伤的伊朗使用惯用手段——恐怖主义、劫持人质和网络攻击这类间接方式实施报复。

Most importantly, he is betting that he has destroyed Iran’s chances of ever reconstituting its nuclear program. That is an ambitious goal: Iran has made clear that, if attacked, it would exit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and take its vast program underground. That is why Mr. Trump focused so much attention on destroying Fordo, the facility Iran built in secret that was publicly exposed by President Barack Obama in 2009. That is where Iran was producing almost all of the near-bomb-grade fuel that most alarmed the United States and its allies.

最重要的是，他在赌自己已经摧毁了伊朗重建核计划的机会。这是一个雄心勃勃的目标：伊朗已经明确表示，如果受到攻击，它将退出《核不扩散条约》，并将其庞大的核项目转入地下。这就是为什么特朗普如此关注摧毁伊朗秘密建造的福尔多设施，该设施在2009年被奥巴马总统公开曝光。伊朗此前在此生产令美国及其盟友极度恐慌的近武器级核燃料。

Mr. Trump’s aides were telling those allies on Saturday night that Washington’s sole mission was to destroy the nuclear program. They described the complex strike as a limited, contained operation akin to the special operation that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

周六晚上，特朗普的助手告诉这些盟友，华盛顿的唯一任务就是摧毁核计划。他们称这次复杂的打击是一次有限的可控行动，类似于2011年击毙奥萨马·本·拉登的特别行动。

“They explicitly said this was not a declaration of war,” one senior European diplomat said late Saturday, describing his conversation with a high-ranking administration official.

“他们明确表示，这不是宣战，”一名欧洲高级外交官周六晚间在描述他与一名美国政府高级官员的谈话时说。

But, the diplomat added, bin Laden had killed 3,000 Americans. Iran had yet to build a bomb.

但是，这位外交官补充说，本·拉登杀死了3000名美国人。伊朗还没有造出核弹。

In short, the administration is arguing that it was engaged in an act of pre-emption, seeking to terminate a threat, not the Iranian regime. But it is far from clear that the Iranians will perceive it that way. In a brief address from the White House on Saturday night, flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump threatened Iran with more destruction if it does not bend to his demands.

简而言之，政府辩称此举属先发制人，旨在消除威胁而非推翻伊朗政权。但伊朗人是否会这么认为还远不清楚。周六晚上，在副总统万斯、国务卿鲁比奥和国防部长海格塞斯的陪同下，特朗普在白宫发表了简短讲话。他威胁称，如果伊朗不屈服于他的要求，将会遭遇更猛烈的打击。

“Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,” he said. “If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”

“伊朗，中东的恶霸，现在必须实现和平，”他说。“如果他们不这样做，未来的袭击规模将大得多，也容易得多。”

“There will be either peace,” he added, “or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left.” He promised that if Iran did not relent, he would go after them “with precision, speed and skill.”

“要么是和平，”他补充说，“要么伊朗会面临比我们在过去八天所目睹的更大的悲剧。记住，还有很多目标。”他承诺，如果伊朗不松口，他将“以精确、迅速和技巧”打击他们。

In essence, Mr. Trump was threatening to broaden his military partnership with Israel, which has spent the last eight days systematically targeting Iran’s top military and nuclear leadership, killing them in their beds, their laboratories and their bunkers. The United States initially separated itself from that operation. In the Trump administration’s first public statement about those strikes, Mr. Rubio emphasized that Israel took “unilateral action against Iran,” adding that the United States was “not involved.”

从本质上讲，特朗普是在威胁扩大与以色列的军事伙伴关系。过去八天里，以色列系统性地定点清除了伊朗的最高军事与核计划负责人，将他们杀死在床上、实验室和掩体中。美国最初与该行动划清界限。在特朗普政府就这些袭击发表的首次公开声明中，鲁比奥强调，以色列“对伊朗采取了单方面行动”，并补充说，美国“没有参与”。

But then, a few days ago, Mr. Trump mused on his social media platform about the ability of the United States to kill Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, anytime he wanted. And Saturday night, he made clear that the United States was all in, and that contrary to Mr. Rubio’s statement, the country was now deeply involved.

但几天前，特朗普在自己的社交媒体平台上若有所思地表示，美国有能力随时杀死伊朗86岁的最高领袖哈梅内伊。周六晚上，他明确表示，美国已经全力以赴，而且与鲁比奥的声明相反，美国现在已经深度参与其中。

Now, having set back Iran’s enrichment capability, Mr. Trump is clearly hoping that he can seize on a remarkable moment of weakness — the weakness that allowed the American B-2 bombers to fly in and out of Iranian territory with little resistance.

现在，在挫败了伊朗的铀浓缩能力之后，特朗普显然希望能抓住一个罕见的虚弱时刻——正是藉于此，美国B-2轰炸机得以在伊朗领土上几乎不受任何阻力地进出。

After Israel’s fierce retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks that killed over a thousand Israeli civilians, Iran is suddenly bereft of its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. Its closest ally, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, had to flee the country. And Russia and China, which formed a partnership of convenience with Iran, were nowhere to be seen after Israel attacked the country.

在以色列对2023年10月7日造成1000多名以色列平民死亡的恐怖袭击进行激烈报复之后，伊朗突然失去了哈马斯和真主党这两大代理人。它最亲密的盟友、叙利亚的巴沙尔·阿萨德不得不流亡海外。而与伊朗结成权宜伙伴关系的俄罗斯和中国，在以色列袭击伊朗后也不见踪影。

That left only the nuclear program as Iran’s ultimate defense. It was always more than just a scientific project — it was the symbol of Iranian resistance to the West, and the core of the leadership’s plan to hold on to power.

伊朗的最终防御手段只剩下核计划。它绝不仅仅是一个科研项目——它是伊朗抵抗西方的象征，也是领导层巩固政权计划的核心。

Along with the repression of dissent, the program had become the ultimate means of defense for the inheritors of the Iranian revolution that began in 1979. If the taking of 52 American hostages was Iran’s way of standing up to a far larger, far more powerful adversary in 1979, the nuclear program has been the symbol of resistance for the last two decades.

伴随着对异见的镇压，该计划已成为1979年开始的伊朗革命继承者的终极防御手段。如果说1979年劫持52名美国人质是伊朗对抗一个体量更大、实力更强的对手的方式，那么在过去20年里，核计划一直是抵抗精神的象征。

One day historians may well draw a line from those images of blindfolded Americans, who were held for 444 days, to the dropping of GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs on the mountainous redoubt called Fordo. They will probably ask whether the United States, its allies or the Iranians themselves could have played this differently.

有一天，历史学家很可能会把那些被蒙住眼睛关押了444天的美国人的画面，与投向山间堡垒福尔多的GBU-57钻地弹联系起来。他们可能会问，美国及其盟友，或伊朗人自己，是否可以采取不同的做法处理这些事件。

And they will almost certainly ask whether Mr. Trump’s gamble paid off.

他们几乎肯定会问，特朗普的赌博是否得到了回报。

His critics in Congress were already questioning his approach. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Trump had acted “without consulting Congress, without a clear strategy, without regard to the consistent conclusions of the intelligence community” that Iran had made no decision to take the final steps to a bomb.

他在国会的批评者已经开始质疑他的做法。情报委员会民主党领袖、弗吉尼亚州参议员马克·华纳表示，特朗普的行动“没有征求国会的意见，没有制定明确的战略，没有考虑情报界的一致结论”——情报界的结论是，伊朗尚未决定迈出制造核弹的最后一步。

If Iran finds itself unable to respond effectively, if the ayatollah’s hold on power is now loosened, or if the country gives up its long-running nuclear ambitions, Mr. Trump will doubtless claim that only he was willing to use America’s military reach to achieve a goal his last four predecessors deemed too risky.

如果伊朗发现无法做出有效回应，如果阿亚图拉对权力的控制现在放松了，或者如果伊朗放弃了长期以来的核野心，特朗普无疑会声称，只有他愿意利用美国的军事力量来实现他的前四位前任认为过于冒险的目标。

But there is another possibility. Iran could slowly recover, its surviving nuclear scientists could take their skills underground and the country could follow the pathway lit by North Korea, with a race to build a bomb. Today, North Korea has 60 or more nuclear weapons by some intelligence estimates, an arsenal that probably makes it too powerful to attack.

但是还有另一种可能。伊朗可能会慢慢恢复，其幸存的核科学家可能会把他们的技能转入地下，这个国家可能会走上朝鲜开辟的道路，加速制造核弹。如今，据一些情报机构估计，朝鲜拥有60件或更多的核武器，这个核武库很可能已强大到无法被攻击。

That, Iran may conclude, is the only pathway to keep larger, hostile powers at bay, and to prevent the United States and Israel from carrying out an operation like the one that lit up the Iranian skies on Sunday morning.

伊朗可能会得出这样的结论：这是牵制更大的敌对势力，防止美国和以色列采取类似周日早上照亮伊朗天空行动的唯一途径。