In public, Iran’s surviving leaders have defiantly refused to negotiate with President Trump to end the American and Israeli assault on their country. But a day after the attacks began, operatives from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence reached out indirectly to the C.I.A. with an offer to discuss terms for ending the conflict, according to officials briefed on the outreach.

在公开场合，伊朗幸存的领导人仍强硬拒绝与特朗普总统谈判，以结束美国和以色列对其国家的攻击。但据知情官员透露，袭击开始一天后，伊朗情报部的特工通过间接渠道联系了美国中央情报局，表示愿意商讨结束冲突的条件。

U.S. officials are skeptical — at least in the short term — that either the Trump administration or Iran is really ready for an offramp, the officials briefed on the outreach said.

知情官员称，美国官员怀疑，至少短期内，无论是特朗普政府还是伊朗，都尚未真正准备好找到一个结束冲突的出口。

Still, the offer, which was made through another country’s spy agency, raises critical questions about whether any Iranian officials could put into place a cease-fire agreement with the Tehran government in chaos as its leaders are methodically picked off by Israeli strikes.

尽管如此，这项通过他国情报机构传递的提议还是引发了关键疑问：在以色列定点清除行动令德黑兰政府陷入混乱之际，伊朗是否还有官员能真正落实停火协议。

The offer was described on the condition of anonymity to The New York Times by Middle Eastern officials and officials from a Western country.

中东国家官员及某西方国家官员在不具名条件下向《纽约时报》描述了这一提议。

White House and Iranian officials did not respond to requests for comment. The C.I.A. declined to comment.

白宫与伊朗官员未回应置评请求。中央情报局拒绝就本文发表评论。

Israeli officials, who want a weekslong campaign to inflict maximum damage on Iran’s military capabilities, and perhaps cause Iran’s government to collapse, have urged the United States to ignore the approach. For now, the offer is not considered serious in Washington.

以色列官员希望开展一场持续数周的行动，对伊朗的军事能力造成最大程度的破坏，甚至促使伊朗政府垮台，他们敦促美国无视这一接触。就目前而言，华盛顿方面并不认为该提议具有严肃性。

And after saying for days that he was open to discussing a deal with Iran, Mr. Trump posted on social media on Tuesday morning that it was now “too late” for talks.

在连续数日表示对与伊朗达成协议持开放态度后，特朗普总统周二早上在社交媒体上发帖称，现在进行谈判已经“太晚了”。

Speaking with reporters later in the day, Mr. Trump lamented that the Iranian officials the United States knew and had considered as potential leaders were being killed.

当天晚些时候，特朗普在与记者交谈时感叹，那些美国熟知并曾视为潜在领导人的伊朗官员正在被逐一清除。

“Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” Mr. Trump said. “Pretty soon we are not going to know anybody.”

“我们原本考虑的人，大多数已经死了，”特朗普说。“很快我们就一个都不认识了。”

The Iranian outreach, and the chaos in Iran’s leadership ranks as the assault continues, highlights the key issue Mr. Trump faces as he decides what sort of Iranian government he might hope to shape, or at least settle for. He already seems to have stopped promoting his initial scenario of a popular uprising against the government yielding a new set of leaders and instead seems to view the best outcome as more pragmatic figures emerging atop the existing political structure.

随着袭击持续，伊朗方面的接触意图及其领导层内部的混乱，凸显出特朗普在决定希望塑造（或至少接受）何种伊朗政府时所面临的关键问题。他似乎已不再鼓吹最初的设想——通过民众起义推翻政府以产生一批新的领导人，而是将务实派人物在现有政治架构中掌权视为最佳结果。

At a minimum, Trump officials will expect any agreement to stop the bombing to include a pledge from Tehran to abandon or drastically curtail its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, and its support for foreign proxy groups like Hezbollah. In return, Mr. Trump has suggested that he would allow Iran’s surviving leaders to maintain their economic and political power.

至少，特朗普政府预计，任何停止轰炸的协议都必须包括德黑兰方面的承诺：放弃或大幅削减弹道导弹和核项目，以及停止对真主党这样的海外代理组织的支持。作为交换，特朗普暗示，他可能会允许伊朗现存的领导人维持经济和政治权力。

Mr. Trump suggested again on Tuesday that his model would be Venezuela after the U.S. capture in January of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro. Under threat of additional force, Mr. Trump has compelled Mr. Maduro’s successor to grant the United States control over Venezuela’s oil exports while making few demands for political reform.

特朗普周二再次表示，他的一个参考模式是委内瑞拉——今年1月，美国在一次行动中抓获了该国领导人尼古拉斯·马杜罗。此后，在进一步武力威胁下，特朗普迫使马杜罗的继任者同意让美国控制委内瑞拉的石油出口，而几乎没有提出政治改革的要求。

“What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect scenario,” Mr. Trump said in a Sunday interview with The New York Times. “Leaders can be picked.”

“我们在委内瑞拉的做法，我认为是完美的范本，”特朗普在周日接受《纽约时报》采访时表示。“领导人是可以挑选的。”

But that vision could be a mirage.

但这种愿景或许只是海市蜃楼。

First, it is not clear that Iran is actually open to a deal, despite the recent outreach from its intelligence arm. Some Iranian leaders may believe they can inflict enough physical, economic and political pain on the United States and Israel to force an end to their assault. Mr. Trump already faces growing political pressure from Republican allies unhappy about the operation.

首先，尽管伊朗情报机构最近进行了接触，但并不清楚伊朗是否真的愿意达成协议。一些伊朗领导人可能认为，他们能够给美国和以色列造成足够拳拳到肉的、经济和政治上的痛苦，从而迫使两国停止对伊朗的攻击。特朗普已经面临来自共和党盟友越来越大的政治压力，他们对此次行动感到不满。

Mr. Trump’s shifting statements on Iranian leadership might reflect tension with Israel about the war’s goals, said Steven A. Cook, a Middle East expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.

美国外交关系委员会的中东问题专家史蒂文·库克表示，特朗普关于伊朗领导层的不断变化的表态，可能反映出他与以色列在战争目标上的分歧。

特朗普总统周二早上在社交媒体上发帖称，现在与伊朗进行谈判已经“太晚了”。

Israel, Mr. Cook said in a briefing on Monday for reporters, does not want to see Mr. Trump engineer a “Venezuela-like solution to change in Iran,” possibly with a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The elite military force controls much of Iran’s economy. Some analysts and U.S. officials believe its ranks might include pragmatists less invested in their regime’s fundamentalist principles than in preserving their power and wealth.

库克在周一给记者们的情况介绍会上表示，以色列不希望看到特朗普策划一场“委内瑞拉式的伊朗政权更迭方案”，例如由伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队中的某个成员来接管权力。这支精锐军事力量控制着伊朗经济的大部分。一些分析师和美国官员认为，在革命卫队内部，可能存在一些更务实的人物，他们对维持政权的意识形态原则兴趣不大，而更关心保住自己的权力和财富。

On Tuesday, Israel struck a compound where senior Iranian clerics were meeting to choose a successor to their supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday.

周二，以色列袭击了一处设施，当时伊朗高级神职人员正在该处开会，挑选上周六在空袭中丧生的最高领袖哈梅内伊的继任者。

Ahead of the strikes on Iran, the C.I.A. produced an intelligence assessment examining various scenarios of what sort of Iranian leadership might emerge after a U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. People briefed on the various scenarios produced by the agency note that none had a high degree of confidence — there were simply too many unknown variables to predict how it would play out.

在对伊朗发动袭击之前，中情局曾做出一份情报评估，分析美以打击后伊朗可能出现什么样的领导层。据知情人士透露，在这份评估设想的各种情况中，没有一种情况具有很高的确定性——因为存在太多未知变量，无法预测局势将如何发展。

But policymakers who have reviewed the intelligence have made their own conclusions about the most likely scenarios. Some have been dismissive of the idea that the Iranian opposition would find a way to seize power. They have been more focused on the prospect that a group of Islamic Revolutionary Guard members might emerge as the most influential voice in the government.

不过，审阅过这些情报的政策制定者也得出了他们自己的判断。一些人并不认同伊朗反对派能找到机会夺权的看法。他们更关注另一种可能性：一批伊斯兰革命卫队成员可能成为政府中最有影响力的力量。

The question for the Trump administration now is whether any of those officials will emerge alive from the repeated attacks on the government.

对特朗普政府来说，现在的问题是，在针对政府的连续打击中，这些官员是否还能有人活下来。

Mr. Trump has made several contradictory statements about his war aims, so it is possible that he will change his mind after ruling out negotiations.

特朗普对这场战争的目标发表了若干相互矛盾的表态，因此，在排除谈判选项之后，他仍然有可能改变主意。

But even if he renews his search for an Iranian leader, as the government weakens, it could be harder to find a person with enough influence to compel the country to abide by a deal with the United States.

但即使他重新开始寻找可以接手的伊朗领导人，随着政府力量不断削弱，要找到一个具有足够影响力、能够迫使该国遵守与美国达成协议的人，可能会变得更加困难。

Many analysts warn that Iran’s government could soon lose control over remote regions dominated by ethnic minorities like the Kurds or collapse entirely, leading to chaos and violence reminiscent of the civil wars in Syria and Libya.

许多分析人士警告说，伊朗政府可能很快就会失去对库尔德人等少数民族聚居的偏远地区的控制，或者彻底垮台，从而引发让人想起叙利亚和利比亚内战的混乱和暴力。

Iranians could overthrow their weakened government. Experts say that the regime is deeply unpopular and has retained power only through the brutal repression of popular uprisings. Mr. Trump’s talk of regime change came after a vicious crackdown in January.

伊朗民众也可能推翻这个已被削弱的政府。专家表示，该政权极不受欢迎，它依靠对民众起义进行残酷镇压才得以维持统治。今年1月伊朗发生严厉镇压后，特朗普开始谈论政权更迭。

But there is no guarantee that Mr. Trump would welcome the outcome of a popular revolution, analysts warn.

但分析人士警告，即便发生民众革命，也不能保证其结果会受到特朗普的欢迎。

“There’s a low likelihood that a successor state would be a liberal democracy friendly to the United States — given that it was forged in a war with the United States,” said Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, a group generally opposed to U.S. foreign interventions.

“继任政权不太可能成为一个对美国友好的自由民主国家——毕竟它是在与美国的战争中诞生的，”智库Defense Priorities的中东项目主任罗斯玛丽·凯拉尼克说。该智库总体上是反对美国对外干预的。

Mr. Trump and his top advisers say it is impossible to do business with Iran’s current leaders given their religiously based radicalism and avowed hatred of the West. They argue that Iran’s refusal to accept Mr. Trump’s demands during last month’s nuclear negotiations, at what amounted to gunpoint, demonstrated its leaders’ fanaticism.

特朗普及其高级顾问表示，鉴于伊朗现任领导人基于宗教的激进主义和对西方的公开仇恨，与他们打交道是不可能的。他们认为，在上个月的核谈判中，伊朗几乎是在枪口之下拒绝了特朗普的要求，这证明了其领导人具有狂热的意识形态。

On Monday, Mr. Trump called Iran’s leaders “radical lunatics,” adding: “They’re sick people. They’re mentally ill. Sick people. They are angry. They are crazy. They are sick.”

周一，特朗普称伊朗领导人是“激进的疯子”，还说：“他们是病人。他们有精神问题。他们是病人。他们很愤怒。他们是疯子。他们有病。”

If Iran’s government survives, the question may be whether Mr. Trump can find a “more moderate” interlocutor, as he put it on Tuesday. That would mean someone senior enough in the current government to command authority, but not too invested in its revolutionary ideology.

如果伊朗政府幸存下来，问题可能是特朗普是否能够找到一位“更温和”的对话对象——正如他周二所说的那样。那意味着要在现任政府中找一个级别足够高、足以发号施令，但又不能太过深陷于革命意识形态之中的人。