When he first ran for president in 2016, Donald J. Trump disavowed the military adventurism of recent years, declaring that “regime change is a proven, absolute failure.” He promised to “stop racing to topple foreign regimes.”

在2016年首次竞选总统时，唐纳德·特朗普曾与近年来的军事冒险主义划清界限，宣称“政权更迭已被证明是彻底的失败”。他承诺要“停止竞相推翻外国政权”。

When Mr. Trump ran for president in 2024, he boasted of starting “no new wars,” and asserted that if Kamala Harris won, “she would get us into a World War III guaranteed,” and send the “sons and daughters” of Americans “to go fight for a war in a country that you’ve never heard of.”

2024年再次竞选总统时，特朗普夸耀自己“没有发动任何新的战争”，并断言如果贺锦丽(Kamala Harris)当选，“她肯定会把我们拖入第三次世界大战”，并把美国的“儿子和女儿”送到“一个你们从未听说过的国家去打仗”。

Barely a year later, Mr. Trump is racing to topple foreign regimes, and is sending American sons and daughters to wage another war in the Middle East. The self-declared “president of PEACE” has chosen to become the president of war after all, unleashing the full power of the U.S. military on Iran with the explicit goal of toppling its government.

仅仅一年之后，特朗普就开始竞相推翻外国政权，并将美国的儿女送往中东发起另一场战争。这位自诩为“和平总统”的人最终选择成为战争总统，动用美国全部军事力量打击伊朗，明确目标就是推翻其政府。

What the Donald Trump of 2016 would think of the Donald Trump of 2026 will never be known. But they are starkly different figures when it comes to overseas intervention. A decade after propelling himself to the highest office by promising to focus on “America first,” Mr. Trump has become increasingly willing to assert power overseas. The bombardment of Iran on Saturday was the eighth time he had ordered the military into action in his second term, even as he has decapitated the government of Venezuela and threatened to overthrow Cuba’s dictator.

2016年的特朗普会如何看待2026年的特朗普，我们无从知晓。但在海外干预问题上，他们形成了鲜明对比。十年前，特朗普正是凭借“美国优先”的承诺登上最高权力宝座；如今他却越来越愿意在海外施展武力。周六对伊朗的轰炸是他在第二个任期内第八次下令动用军队行动；此外他还推翻了委内瑞拉政府，并威胁要推翻古巴的独裁者。

In his middle-of-the-night social media video announcing the opening of this new war, Mr. Trump laid out a bill of particulars against Iran going back nearly half a century, including its pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, its support for terrorist groups that attacked Americans and allies, the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the recent massacre of Iranian protesters. But he never explained why those aggressions required action now rather than earlier, or why his thinking evidently changed.

在一段午夜时分发布、宣布开启新战争的社交媒体视频中，特朗普列举了近半个世纪以来针对伊朗的一系列指控，包括发展核武器和弹道导弹、支持袭击美国及其盟友的恐怖组织、1979年占领美国驻德黑兰大使馆，以及最近对伊朗抗议者的屠杀。但他始终没有解释为何现在而非更早采取行动，也没有说明他的想法为何发生了明显转变。

Nor did he reconcile his conflicting statements on the status of the Iranian threat. After joining Israel in attacking Iran last summer, he said that he had “obliterated” the country’s nuclear program. He repeated that claim in last Tuesday’s State of the Union address, and again in his early Saturday morning video. But he did not clarify why it was necessary to strike a program that had already been obliterated.

他也没有对自己关于伊朗威胁问题前后矛盾的言论做出解释。去年夏天与以色列一起攻击伊朗后，他宣称已经“彻底摧毁”了伊朗的核项目。他在上周二的国情咨文中重复了这一说法，又在周六清晨的视频中再次强调。但他并未解释，为何有必要去打击一个已经被“彻底摧毁”的项目。

He did, however, go further than ever in making regime change the goal, calling on Iranians to overthrow their leaders. “When we are finished, take over your government,” Mr. Trump said. “It will be yours to take.” He repeated that in a social media post Saturday afternoon announcing that the strike had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader — “one of the most evil people in History,” as he put it.

不过，他确实比以往任何时候都更明确地把“政权更迭”作为目标，呼吁伊朗人民推翻其领导人。“当我们完事后，接管你们的政府吧，”特朗普说，“它将属于你们。”他在周六下午宣布袭击已击毙最高领袖阿亚图拉阿里·哈梅内伊的社交媒体帖子中重复了这一点——用他的话说，这是“历史上最邪恶的人之一”。

But how Iranians should go about taking over was left unclear. Mr. Trump wrote that police and revolutionary guard forces should “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves” — a remarkable notion suggesting that Iranian security officials would somehow team up with the same people they were gunning down in the streets just weeks ago.

但伊朗人究竟应该如何接管政权，目前尚不清楚。特朗普写道，警察和革命卫队应当“与伊朗爱国者和平融合，共同努力，让国家恢复它应有的伟大”——这一说法颇为惊人，仿佛那些几周前还在街头向抗议者开枪的伊朗安全官员会突然与同一批人联手。

主张对伊朗采取行动的人士说，特朗普仍为完全承诺推翻德黑兰政府，而是把这件事留给了伊朗人民去决定。

“His stated goal here, regime change, is the very thing he ran against in 2016,” said Brandan P. Buck, a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Previously, the president used airstrikes, raids and covert military power when he believed it could achieve discrete ends with good optics at little cost. This attack on Iran has broken that formula and constitutes a leap into the unknown.”

“他此次公开的目标是政权更迭，这正是他在2016年竞选时所反对的东西，”自由意志主义智库加图研究所的外交政策研究员布兰登·巴克说。“此前，在认为可以以较小代价达成特定目标，并取得良好的公众形象时，总统才会使用空袭、突袭和秘密军事力量。这次对伊朗的攻击打破了这一模式，是一次跃入未知领域的行动。”

Mr. Trump’s critics quickly resurrected his past statements to accuse him of abandoning his own promises, circulating video clips of his campaign rallies and social media quotes assailing Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Kamala Harris as warmongers.

特朗普的批评者迅速翻出他过去的言论，指责他背弃了自己的承诺，并传播他在竞选集会和社交媒体上抨击贝拉克·奥巴马、乔治·W·布什以及贺锦丽是战争贩子的旧视频和引语。

Mr. Trump, 2012: “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin — watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.”

特朗普，2012年：“既然奥巴马的民调正在暴跌——就等着看吧，他会对利比亚或伊朗发动打击。他已经走投无路了。”

Mr. Trump, 2013: “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly — not skilled!”

特朗普，2013年：“记住，我早就预测过奥巴马会因为谈判无能而攻击伊朗——他根本不擅长谈判！”

Mr. Trump, 2016: “We’re going to stop the reckless and costly policy of regime change.”

特朗普，2016年：“我们将停止鲁莽而昂贵的政权更迭政策。”

Mr. Trump, election night 2024: “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”

特朗普，2024年大选之夜：“我不会发动战争，我会结束战争。”

And there were plenty of quotes from advisers like Stephen Miller, now the deputy White House chief of staff (“Kamala = WWIII. Trump = Peace,” Nov. 1, 2024), and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (“The War Department will not be distracted by democracy-building, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change,” Dec. 6, 2025).

此外还有大量来自其顾问的言论，比如现任白宫副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒（2024年11月1日：“卡玛拉＝第三次世界大战。特朗普＝和平”），以及国防部长皮特·赫格塞思（2025年12月6日：“战争部不会被民主建设、干预主义、不明确的战争和政权更迭所分心。”）

Among those lashing out at Mr. Trump on Saturday were not just liberals but also prominent leaders of the Make America Great movement who complained that he had been captured by the neoconservatives he once spurned, criticism led by the right-wing podcast host Tucker Carlson and former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia.

周六抨击特朗普的不仅有自由派人士，还有“让美国再次伟大”运动的一些知名领袖，他们抱怨特朗普被自己曾经鄙视的新保守派所俘获。批评声主要来自右翼播客主持人塔克·卡尔森和佐治亚州的前众议员乔丽·泰勒·格林。

“It’s always a lie and it’s always America Last,” Ms. Greene, who resigned her seat last month after breaking with Mr. Trump, wrote on social media. “But it feels like the worst betrayal this time because it comes from the very man and the admin who we all believed was different and said no more.”

“永远是谎言，永远是‘美国最后’，”格林在社交媒体上写道。她上个月因与特朗普决裂而辞去议员职务。“但这一次感觉是最严重的背叛，因为它来自那个我们曾相信其与众不同，并说过‘不再如此’的人和他的政府。”

Representative Marlin Stutzman, Republican of Indiana, argued that Mr. Trump’s attack on Iran would head off a worse threat down the road and pave the way for a new Middle East that would be friendlier to the United States. “To those who say, ‘Well, President Trump said he wasn’t going to take us into any wars,’ he’s keeping us out of wars in the long run,” he said on CNN.

印第安纳州共和党众议员马林·斯图茨曼则认为，特朗普对伊朗的攻击将避免未来更大的威胁，并为一个对美国更友好的新中东铺平道路。“对于那些说‘特朗普总统不是说不会让我们卷入任何战争’的人，我要说，从长远来看他是在让我们远离战争，”他在CNN上表示。

Mr. Trump’s increasing willingness to deploy military force underscores the broader change between his first term and second term. He is far more comfortable using the instruments of power than he was the last time around, at home as well as abroad. What he sometimes threatened or considered doing in his first stint in the White House, he more readily acts on now, whether it be sending federal forces into American streets, prosecuting his perceived enemies, purging the government of those deemed disloyal or imposing tariffs on countries around the world.

特朗普日益愿意动用军事力量，这凸显出其第一任期与第二任期之间更广泛的转变。无论在国内还是在国外，他如今都能更加自如地使用权力工具。在首个任期内他只是威胁或考虑过的事情，如今更容易付诸行动——无论是把联邦部队派上美国街头、起诉他认为的敌人、清洗被视为不忠诚的官员，还是对世界各国加征关税。

The team he assembled in the first four years included conventional Republicans or career military officers who often restrained his most radical impulses. But there is no John F. Kelly, Jim Mattis, Mark T. Esper or Mark A. Milley this time around. Instead, he has surrounded himself with more aggressive break-the-china advisers pushing for more ambitious action and with figures like Mr. Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, who view their jobs as facilitating the president’s desires rather than talking him out of them.

第一个四年里，他组建的团队中有传统共和党人或职业军官，他们往往会约束他最激进的冲动。但这一次，没有约翰·凯利、詹姆斯·马蒂斯、马克·埃斯珀或马克·米利。取而代之的是一群更激进、喜欢打破常规、推动更大胆行动的顾问；以及像赫格塞思、国务卿马尔科·鲁比奥和白宫幕僚长苏西·怀尔斯这样的人，他们把自己的职责视为促成总统的愿望，而不是劝阻他。

Mr. Trump’s journey as commander in chief has been a fitful one. He had no experience in either the military or public office when he first arrived in the Oval Office in January 2017. He promoted a more aggressive war against the Islamic State, but sometimes hesitated to use force, at one point calling off a retaliatory military strike on Iran with just minutes to go, deeming it not worth the casualties.

特朗普作为三军统帅的历程充满了起伏。2017年1月首次入主白宫时，他既无军旅经验，也无公职经历。他力主对伊斯兰国发动更猛烈的战争，但有时又对动用武力犹豫不决，曾在最后几分钟叫停对伊朗的报复性打击，认为不值得付出伤亡代价。

He was intent on pulling back from much of the world, seeking to bring U.S. troops home from places like South Korea, Germany and Syria. He negotiated a peace agreement with the Taliban to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan, a deal then executed by his successor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in a disastrous operation.

他一度执意从世界许多地区撤出，试图将美军从韩国、德国和叙利亚等地撤回。他与塔利班谈判达成协议，准备撤出所有驻阿富汗美军，这一协议最终由其继任者、拜登总统执行，却演变成了一场灾难性的行动。

But he was also emboldened when a U.S. strike in 2020 targeted and killed Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani without instigating the devastating reprisals or prolonged regional war that some critics had predicted. Likewise, in this second term, the successful commando raid that captured President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela also energized Mr. Trump.

但他也因2020年美军空袭击毙伊朗将军卡西姆·苏莱曼尼受到鼓舞，因为那次行动并未引发一些批评者所预言的毁灭性报复或长期地区战争。同样，在第二任期内，成功抓获委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗的突击行动也让特朗普更加自信。

His public posture, however, has veered wildly over the past year. One moment, he is presenting himself as a historic peacemaker, forming a so-called Board of Peace and griping that he has not won the Nobel Peace Prize while boasting, inaccurately, that he has ended eight wars — including one with Iran. The next moment, he is threatening to seize Greenland, take back the Panama Canal, strangle Cuba and even go after Colombia’s president as he did Venezuela’s.

然而，过去一年里他的公开姿态摇摆不定。一会儿，他把自己塑造成历史性的和平缔造者，成立所谓的“和平委员会”，抱怨自己还没有获得诺贝尔和平奖，同时不准确地吹嘘自己结束了包括与伊朗冲突在内的八场战争；下一刻，他又威胁要夺取格陵兰、收回巴拿马运河、扼杀古巴，甚至像对待委内瑞拉总统那样对付哥伦比亚总统。

The outcome of Mr. Trump’s geopolitical gamble will depend not just on how the military operation proceeds, but what comes next. Success has a way of making voters forget about broken promises. There is little love lost for the Tehran regime, and video showed Iranians in the streets cheering reports of Ayatollah Khamenei’s death. If Mr. Trump manages to push the remaining government from power, he will have something to boast about that none of his predecessors dared try.

特朗普这场地缘政治豪赌的结果不仅取决于军事行动的进展，也取决于接下来会发生什么。成功往往能让选民忘记被打破的承诺。人们对德黑兰政权几乎没有多少好感，视频显示，伊朗民众走上街头，为哈梅内伊之死的消息而欢呼。如果特朗普真的能将剩余政府赶下台，他将拥有一个可以夸耀的成就——这是他的前任们都不敢尝试的事情。

Unlike the so-called forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that helped fuel his political rise, Mr. Trump has not made any major commitment of ground troops in Iran, and seems determined to stick to air power, avoiding the sort of grinding guerrilla warfare that turned Americans against past wars.

不同于阿富汗和伊拉克那些被称为“永久战争”的冲突——它们曾助推他的政治崛起，特朗普并未在伊朗投入大量地面部队，而且似乎决心只依靠空中力量，避免那种曾让美国民众对以往战争心生厌倦的消耗性游击战。

Still, as Mr. Trump himself warned in his overnight video, there could be American casualties. And if the Tehran government does fall, it could result in a replacement that is still hostile to the United States, or in fratricidal chaos, as happened in Libya after Muammar el-Qaddafi was deposed and killed in 2011.

但正如特朗普在凌晨发布的视频中所警告的那样，美国可能会出现伤亡。如果德黑兰政府真的垮台，结果也可能是一个仍然敌视美国的替代政权，或是像2011年卡扎菲被推翻并杀死后的利比亚那样陷入混乱。

One way or the other, his allies were already talking about it being a legacy moment for Mr. Trump. What kind of legacy is not yet clear. But it will not be the one that he originally promised.

无论如何，他的盟友已经开始将此视为特朗普的“历史性时刻”。这将成就怎样的政治遗产目前尚不清楚。但可以确定的是，这不会是他最初承诺过的那种遗产。