President Trump’s war with Iran is testing the limits of his unorthodox diplomatic style as he grasps for a deal to end the conflict shaking the Middle East and the global economy.

特朗普总统对伊朗的这场战争正在考验其非传统外交风格的极限，他正努力寻求达成一项协议，以结束这场撼动中东和全球经济的冲突。

As the war stretches longer than Mr. Trump seems to have anticipated, he appears to be casting about for a diplomatic offramp even as he threatens to escalate the conflict.

随着战争持续时间似乎超出了特朗普最初的预期，他似乎正在四处寻找外交出路，即使他同时也威胁要升级冲突。

In a social media post on Thursday, Mr. Trump seemed confounded by the challenge, calling Iranian officials “very different and ‘strange’” and claiming that they were “begging” for a deal while insisting that they “better get serious soon.”

在周四的一篇社交媒体帖子中，特朗普似乎对这一挑战颇为困惑，他称伊朗官员“非常不同且‘奇怪’”，并声称他们正在“乞求”达成协议，同时坚称他们“最好快点认真起来”。

It is unclear who in the Trump administration may be in charge of talking with a battered Tehran’s surviving leadership. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would join his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner in any negotiations. “They’re doing it, along with Marco, JD, we have a number of people doing it,” Mr. Trump said.

目前尚不清楚特朗普政府内部究竟由谁负责与遭受重创的德黑兰幸存领导层进行谈判。特朗普在周二表示，副总统JD·万斯、国务卿马可·鲁比奥将与美国中东事务特使史蒂夫·维特科夫以及他的女婿贾里德·库什纳一道参与谈判。“他们在做这件事，还有马可、JD，我们有不少人在处理这件事，”特朗普说。

Mr. Vance is a past opponent of U.S. intervention in the Middle East generally and Iran in particular. Mr. Rubio, by contrast, is an Iran hawk who has publicly defended Mr. Trump’s decision to attack the country.

万斯过去一直反对美国在中东进行干预，尤其反对干预伊朗。相比之下，鲁比奥则是伊朗问题上的鹰派人物，曾公开为特朗普攻击伊朗的决定辩护。

That jumble of emissaries — a friend, a family member, a dove and a hawk — reflects Mr. Trump’s improvisational approach to foreign dealings and his disdain for career diplomats and their often cumbersome protocols. The picture is further muddied by Mr. Trump’s stream-of-consciousness commentary on social media and before the TV cameras during which he declares, revises and sometimes reverses his threats and demands.

这样一支由朋友、家人、鸽派和鹰派拼凑起来的使团反映出特朗普处理外交事务的即兴风格，以及他对职业外交官及其繁琐程序的轻蔑态度。特朗普在社交媒体和电视镜头前意识流式的发言让局面变得更加扑朔迷离，他会在这些讲话中不断宣布、修改甚至推翻自己的威胁和要求。

The situation is testing the bravado many Trump officials expressed about their early foreign policy initiatives. “Turns out a lot of diplomacy boils down to a simple skill: don’t be an idiot,” Mr. Vance posted on social media last March, in praise of Mr. Witkoff.

当前的局势正在检验特朗普团队之前那种自信满满的外交姿态。“事实证明，很多外交归结为一项简单的技能：别当个白痴，”万斯去年3月在社交媒体上发帖，称赞维特科夫。

Iran has publicly rejected a 15-point cease-fire proposal circulated by the United States but is privately considering meeting with unspecified U.S. negotiators in Pakistan in the coming days.

伊朗已公开拒绝了美国提出的15点停火方案，但私下里正考虑在未来几天与未透露姓名的美国谈判代表在巴基斯坦会面。

Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush, rated Mr. Trump’s Iran diplomacy a failure, in part because the president seems unsure of his own goals. “Trump says he wants to de-escalate, but does he even know what that means?” Mr. Kurtzer added that the 15 demands Mr. Trump has submitted to Tehran “are nonstarters, because they would require Iran essentially to give up on everything.”

曾在乔治·W·布什政府担任美国驻以色列大使的丹尼尔·库尔策认为，特朗普在伊朗问题上的外交努力是失败的，部分原因在于总统本人似乎都不确定自己的目标。“特朗普说他想缓和局势，但他真的知道那意味着什么吗？”库尔策还表示，特朗普向德黑兰提出的15项要求“根本不可能成功，因为那实际上是要求伊朗放弃一切”。

Mr. Kurtzer also blamed Mr. Trump for sidelining career diplomats, cutting key policymaking jobs and largely placing his Middle East diplomacy into the hands of Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner, who have backgrounds in real estate. That has left Mr. Trump without skilled teams of experts to help guide him out of the current crisis, Mr. Kurtzer said.

库尔策还将责任归咎于特朗普边缘化职业外交官、削减关键政策岗位，并将其中东外交大权基本交给了有房地产背景的维特科夫和库什纳。他表示，这让特朗普身边没有经验丰富的专家团队来帮助他摆脱当前的危机。

“If you’ve hollowed out the State Department and substantially reduced the size of the National Security Council and fired some of your top generals, and if so much of what you’re doing is about political loyalty, then maybe there isn’t that reservoir of expertise to draw on,” he said.

“如果你把国务院架空，大幅削减国家安全委员会的规模，还解雇了一些高级将领，而且你所做的很多事情都围绕政治忠诚，那么也许就没有那样的专业储备可供调用了，”他说。

Many foreign diplomats share the concern that America’s diplomatic machine is malfunctioning. “America has lost control of its own foreign policy,” the foreign minister of Oman, Badr Albusaidi, wrote in The Economist magazine last week.

许多外国外交官也有类似担忧，认为美国的外交机器正在失灵。阿曼外交大臣巴德尔·阿尔布赛义迪上周在《经济学人》撰文称：“美国已经失去了对自身外交政策的控制。”

Mr. Albusaidi suggested that Mr. Trump could not solve the problem on his own. “The question for friends of America is simple,” he said. “What can we do to extricate the superpower from this unwanted entanglement?” In a reflection of that sentiment, several nations including Oman, Egypt and Pakistan have sought to mediate new talks between Washington and Tehran.

阿尔布赛义迪暗示，特朗普无法独自解决这个问题。“对于美国的朋友们来说，问题很简单，”他说。“我们能做些什么，把这个超级大国从它不愿卷入的纠葛中解救出来？”在这种看法下，包括阿曼、埃及和巴基斯坦在内的几个国家一直在寻求斡旋，促成华盛顿与德黑兰重启谈判。

Mr. Albusaidi is one of many who have been questioning whether Mr. Trump missed an opportunity to avoid war when he sent Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner for last-ditch negotiations with Iran over its nuclear and missile programs. Critics charge that Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner were out of their depth and too quick to conclude that Tehran was not open to a deal.

阿尔布赛义迪是众多质疑特朗普是否错失了避免战争机会的人之一。特朗普派遣维特科夫和库什纳就伊朗核计划和导弹计划进行最后一轮谈判。批评者指责维特科夫和库什纳根本不胜任，且过于仓促地认定德黑兰无意达成协议。

从左至右：贾里德·库什纳、国务卿马可·鲁比奥、副总统JD·万斯和美国中东事务特使史蒂夫·维特科夫，他们都参与了与伊朗的谈判。

During an appearance on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart on Monday, Jake Sullivan, who spent four years as President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s national security adviser, said Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner had bungled a meeting in late February with Iranian officials in Geneva that Mr. Trump had cast as a last chance to avoid war.

曾在拜登总统任内担任国家安全顾问四年之久的杰克·沙利文周一在参加乔恩·斯图尔特的《每日秀》节目时表示，维特科夫和库什纳在2月底与伊朗官员在日内瓦举行的一次会面中处理失当，特朗普当时将该会谈视为避免战争的最后机会。

“Just a few days before we started bombing Iran, the Iranians put a proposal on the table in Geneva that went a long way towards resolving the nuclear issue,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And my understanding is that our side, our negotiators simply didn’t understand what they were being offered, and they ignored it, and decided to go ahead and strike.”

“就在我们开始轰炸伊朗的几天前，伊朗方面在日内瓦提出了一项提议，该提议在解决核问题上取得了很大进展，”沙利文说。“据我了解，我们这边的谈判代表根本没明白对方给出了什么条件，他们忽视了该提议，决定继续发动打击。”

Mr. Sullivan attributed that understanding to “a mismatch between that and what the mediators, Omani mediators, said was actually on the table.”

沙利文将这一判断归因于“我方理解与调解方阿曼方面所说的实际提议之间存在偏差”。

Trump officials strongly dispute that, saying Tehran refused to budge on basic U.S. demands, including that Iran agree to zero uranium enrichment on its soil.

特朗普政府官员强烈否认这一说法，称德黑兰对美国的基本要求拒绝让步，包括要求伊朗同意在其领土上实现零铀浓缩。

But Mr. Sullivan is hardly alone in raising concerns about Mr. Trump’s diplomatic acumen. In an interview last week with PBS’s “Firing Line,” Jim Mattis, who served as defense secretary for much of Mr. Trump’s first term, said the president had failed to use America’s nonmilitary power wisely.

但质疑特朗普外交能力的远不止沙利文一人。上周，在接受PBS《火线》节目采访时，曾在特朗普第一任期大部分时间担任国防部长的吉姆·马蒂斯表示，总统未能明智地运用美国的非军事力量。

“‘Targetry’ does not take the place of strategy,” Mr. Mattis said. “Right now, whether or not we have a strategy to actually use diplomacy, economics,” and the help of European allies whom Mr. Trump has alienated, “is still to be proven,” he added.

“‘定点打击’并不能取代战略，”马蒂斯说道。他还说，“目前，我们是否拥有实际去运用外交、经济手段的战略，”以及利用特朗普已经疏远的欧洲盟友的帮助，“仍有待证明。”

One particular quirk of Mr. Trump’s diplomatic approach is the minimalist role of his State Department and its leader, Mr. Rubio.

特朗普外交手法的一个特别怪异之处在于，国务院及其负责人鲁比奥扮演的角色微不足道。

Since taking on a second job last year as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, a demanding White House staff position, Mr. Rubio has visited foreign capitals far less often than his recent State Department predecessors. He has not been to the Middle East since a brief October stop in Israel. (Mr. Rubio canceled a planned return trip there this month when war broke out.) His last foreign trip was a one-day visit to St. Kitts and Nevis for a Caribbean security conference in late February.

自去年兼任特朗普国家安全顾问这一艰巨的白宫要职以来，鲁比奥访问外国首都的次数远少于过去几届前任。他自去年10月短暂访问以色列以来就再未去过中东。（战争爆发后，鲁比奥取消了本月重返那里的计划。）他最近一次出访是2月底前往圣基茨和尼维斯参加加勒比地区安全会议，为期一天。

Mr. Rubio has held numerous phone calls with officials in the Middle East and elsewhere since the war in Iran began, according to the State Department.

根据国务院的说法，自伊朗战争开始以来，鲁比奥已与中东和其他地区的官员进行了多次电话通话。

But during past Middle East crises, U.S. secretaries of state have typically raced across the region to build personal trust and glean insights in ways that veteran diplomats say requires in-person interaction.

但在过去的中东危机中，美国国务卿通常会奔赴该地区各地，通过面对面互动建立个人信任，获取有深度的见解，资深外交官认为这种互动是必要的。

Mr. Rubio typically visits the State Department “almost every day,” he told Politico in June, but added that he spends more time at the White House during times of conflict. He suggested in December that he had less need for travel because “we have a lot of leaders constantly coming here” to visit Mr. Trump at the White House.

鲁比奥今年6月告诉Politico，他通常“几乎每天”都会去国务院，但他补充说，在冲突时期他会有更多时间待在白宫。他在12月暗示，自己不太需要出访，因为“我们有很多领导人不断来这里”访问特朗普。

Mr. Rubio plans to attend a Friday gathering of Group of 7 foreign ministers in France, in what the State Department said would be a one-day trip.

鲁比奥计划参加周五在法国举行的七国集团外长会议，据国务院称，这将是一次为期一天的行程。

自去年兼任特朗普的国家安全顾问以来，鲁比奥出访外国首都的频率明显低于他在国务院的前任。

He has also said he is unbothered by the heavy diplomatic responsibilities Mr. Trump has assigned to Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner, saying that they check in with him regularly.

他还表示，自己并不在意特朗普赋予威特科夫和库什纳的大量外交职责，并称他们会定期与他沟通。

But the war with Iran reveals the risk in what Aaron David Miller, who served as a Middle East negotiator under several presidents of both parties, calls Mr. Trump’s “huge break with convention and common sense.”

但与伊朗的战争暴露了艾伦·戴维·米勒所说的特朗普“与惯例和常识的巨大决裂”所带来的风险。米勒曾在两党多位总统手下担任中东谈判代表。

“That the secretary of state is playing a subordinate role and not managing the administration’s most serious foreign policy crisis attests to how dysfunctional the decision-making process is,” he added. “Because there’s no structure, it also allows Iran to try to pick and choose which U.S. officials they want to talk to.”

“国务卿在扮演一个从属角色，没有在处置政府最严重的外交政策危机，这说明了决策过程的紊乱，”他补充说。“因为没有结构，这也让伊朗能够挑选他们想要与之对话的美国官员。”

A Trump administration briefing on the talks, held for reporters soon after the war began, offered some fodder for those who question Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner’s role in crisis.

战争开始后不久，特朗普政府为记者举行的一次关于谈判的简报会为质疑威特科夫和库什纳在危机中所扮演角色的人提供了一些素材。

The two men were joined in Geneva by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Argentine diplomat Rafael Grossi, but no American technical experts.

这两人与国际原子能机构负责人、阿根廷外交官拉斐尔·格罗西一同参加了日内瓦会谈，但没有美国技术专家在场。

During the briefing, a senior Trump administration official said it was “surprising” that Iran had insisted in Geneva that it enjoyed an inalienable national right to enrich uranium that it would never surrender — even though Iran has declared that position for decades.

在简报会上，一位不愿具名的特朗普政府高级官员表示，伊朗在日内瓦坚持认为浓缩铀是不可剥夺的国家权利，永远不会放弃这一权利，这“令人惊讶”——尽管伊朗数十年来一直公开宣称这一立场。

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also repeatedly misstated the abbreviation for Mr. Grossi’s agency, which has long played a crucial monitoring role within Iran, as the “I.E.A.E.” or “I.E.A.”

这位要求匿名的官员还多次说错格罗西所在机构的缩写，称这个长期在伊朗发挥关键监督作用的机构为“IEAE”或“IEA”。

But the official nonetheless expressed confidence in his own expertise. Referring to a document presented by the Iranian negotiators, the official said: “I went through it. I know enough about nuclear that I was able to absorb.”

但这位官员仍表示对自己的专业知识有信心。在谈到伊朗谈判代表提交的一份文件时，他说：“我看过了。我对核问题了解得足够多，能够理解。”

“It all smelled fishy,” the official concluded.

“这一切都很可疑，”这位官员最后说道。

That view was relayed to Mr. Trump, who launched his attack the next night.

这一看法被传达给特朗普，后者在次日晚发动了攻击。