President Trump has defined his career in politics with displays of dominance and control. But in the Middle East, he faces a rolling crisis that keeps thwarting those impulses.

特朗普总统的政治生涯一直以展现主导权和控制力为标志。但在中东，他正面临一场持续发酵的危机，不断挫败他的这些冲动。

On Sunday, Mr. Trump lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling The Financial Times that the Israeli leader “won’t have any choice” but to accept a U.S.-negotiated deal with Iran. “I call all the shots,” he said. But early Monday, Mr. Trump was still trying to rein in Mr. Netanyahu, writing on social media just after 5:30 a.m.: “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting.’”

周日，特朗普猛烈抨击了以色列总理内塔尼亚胡，他在接受《金融时报》采访时表示，这位以色列领导人“别无选择”，只能接受美国与伊朗谈判达成的协议。“一切由我说了算，”他说。但到了周一凌晨，特朗普仍在试图约束内塔尼亚胡，早上5点30分刚过时，他在社交媒体上写道：“以色列和伊朗必须立即停止‘交火’。”

One hundred days after starting the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran on Feb. 28, Mr. Trump is grappling with his own version of the sort of Middle East military quagmire that beset his predecessors — and that he promised to avoid. (On Sunday, Mr. Trump tried to deny that he had ever made such a pledge, telling NBC News that “I don’t like these endless wars” but also that “this is not an endless war.”)

距离2月28日美以打响对伊战争已经一百天，特朗普正努力应对属于他自己的中东军事泥潭，这样的泥潭曾经困扰他的多位前任，而他曾承诺要避免。（周日，特朗普试图否认自己曾经做过此类承诺，他告诉NBC新闻：“我不喜欢这些无休止的战争”，但同时又说，“这不是一场无休止的战争”。）

He won a tactical reprieve on Monday when Iran and Israel both said they would hold their fire after their first strikes on each other since April. But the fundamental deadlock remains, as Iran hawks in Washington warn that the president faces a strategic defeat and as polls show broad disapproval of the war as the midterms approach.

周一，伊朗和以色列均表示，在4月以来首次相互打击后，将暂停交火，特朗普随之赢得战术上的喘息之机。但根本性的僵局依然存在，华盛顿的对伊强硬派警告称总统正面临战略性失败，而且随着中期选举的临近，民调显示公众普遍反对这场战争。

“Trump launched a war of choice overestimating America’s military capacity and underestimating Iran’s,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “That is a box that Trump cannot get out of right now.”

“特朗普发动了一场自己选择的战争，他高估了美国的军事实力，低估了伊朗的实力，”卡内基国际和平研究院高级研究员、前美国国务院官员亚伦·戴维·米勒说。“这是特朗普目前无法脱身的困局。”

周一摄于德黑兰。美国针对伊朗船只实施的反封锁措施未能解决伊朗事实上封锁霍尔木兹海峡的问题。

That box includes Iran’s de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. counter-blockade on Iranian ships has been unable to resolve. There is also Mr. Trump’s demand for wide-ranging concessions by Iran on its nuclear program, which Tehran is resisting.

这一困局包括伊朗对霍尔木兹海峡的实质性封锁，而美国对伊朗船只的反封锁未能解决这一问题。此外，特朗普要求伊朗在其核项目上做出广泛让步，这也遭到了德黑兰的抵制。

“I worry that the president’s going to codify a bad deal,” said Brad Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer and senior military expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that takes a hawkish line on Iran.

“我担心总统会敲定一个糟糕的协议，”前美国陆军军官、华盛顿对伊强硬派智库保卫民主基金会的高级军事专家布拉德·鲍曼说。

Mr. Trump has let his frustration show. He complained on social media last week that critics were “chirping” that he should “move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever.” He said they should “sit back and relax” because “it will all work out well in the end — It always does!”

特朗普已显露出挫败感。上周他在社交媒体上抱怨说，批评者们一直在“喋喋不休”地议论他应该“行动快点，或者慢点，或者开战，或者不开战，或者随便什么”。他说他们应该“坐下来放松一下”，因为“最终一切都会好起来的——总是这样的！”

On Sunday, Mr. Trump insisted that he had not violated his campaign pledge to avoid “endless wars” even though a conflict he called “a little excursion” in March had entered its fourth month.

周日，特朗普坚称他没有违背自己关于避免“无休止战争”的竞选承诺，尽管他今年3月曾称之为“小规模行动”的冲突已进入第四个月。

“Look at Iraq. You were there for years,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Kristen Welker of NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re there for a few months. And the threat is largely over. Soon, it will be over.”

“看看伊拉克。你们在那里待了多少年，”特朗普在接受NBC《与媒体见面》节目克里斯汀·韦尔克采访时说。“我们只在那里待了几个月。威胁基本上已经结束了。很快，它就会结束。”

But unlike Iraq, where U.S. ground forces toppled Saddam Hussein’s government within weeks before eventually getting bogged down in a yearslong insurgency, the Iran war has stood out for how quickly it has revealed the limits of what American firepower can accomplish. Mr. Bowman said that if the war left the Iranian leadership “angry and still armed,” with newfound influence over the Strait of Hormuz, “then I’d say that is a negative outcome for the United States.”

但与伊拉克不同——在伊拉克，美国地面部队在几周内推翻了萨达姆·侯赛因政府，随后最终陷入了长达数年的叛乱泥潭——而对伊朗的战争之所以引人注目，是因为它迅速暴露了美国火力所能达到的极限。鲍曼表示，如果这场战争让伊朗领导层“感到愤怒且依然武装”，并对霍尔木兹海峡获得了新的影响力，“那么我会说，这对美国来说是一个负面结果。”

“The United States has demonstrated that it has the pre-eminent military in the world, but that that military power also has limitations,” Mr. Bowman said. “I do worry that this administration underestimated the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“美国已经证明自己拥有世界上最卓越的军队，但这种军事力量也有局限性，”鲍曼说。“我确实担心本届政府低估了伊朗伊斯兰共和国。”

Mr. Bowman said that a sharp escalation of the war by the United States would also be problematic, and that the depletion of U.S. munitions stocks had harmed America’s military posture in Europe and Asia. But he acknowledged that his preferred route of heightening the economic and political pressure on Iran would be difficult to maintain for Mr. Trump, given Iran’s ability to keep gasoline prices high with its grip on the strait.

鲍曼表示，美国若大幅升级战争同样会带来问题，而且美国弹药储备的消耗已经损害了美国在欧洲和亚洲的军事态势。他主张加大对伊朗经济和政治压力，但他也承认，这一路线对特朗普来说是很难维持的，因为伊朗有能力凭借其对海峡的控制权来维持高油价。

Deepening Mr. Trump’s struggle to control the course of the war is his mercurial relationship with Mr. Netanyahu, who has angered the U.S. president with fierce strikes in Lebanon in his fight against Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned militant group there. Mr. Trump acknowledged last week that he had held a profanity-laced call with Mr. Netanyahu, explaining that “I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon.”

令特朗普控制战争进程更加困难的是他与内塔尼亚胡之间反复无常的关系。内塔尼亚胡在打击与伊朗结盟的武装组织黎巴嫩真主党过程中对黎巴嫩发动了猛烈空袭，这激怒了美国总统。特朗普上周承认，他曾与内塔尼亚胡进行过一次夹带粗话的通话，并解释说：“他对黎巴嫩的持续军事行动让我有些恼火。”

Mr. Miller, who specialized in the Middle East at the State Department, described Mr. Trump as largely successful in establishing leverage over Mr. Netanyahu. The perceived support of Mr. Trump is critical to Mr. Netanyahu’s political survival in Israel, Mr. Miller said. Mr. Trump could well bring more pressure to bear on Mr. Netanyahu if it is necessary to secure an agreement with Iran, he predicted.

曾任国务院中东事务专家的米勒认为，特朗普在对内塔尼亚胡施加影响力方面总体上相当成功。米勒说，外界眼中特朗普的支持对于内塔尼亚胡在以色列的政治生存至关重要。他预测，如果有必要确保与伊朗达成协议，特朗普很可能会对内塔尼亚胡施加更多压力。

But getting to that stage would require extracting more compromises from Iran. While Mr. Trump has shown he can change Israel’s calculus, Mr. Miller said, “he’s not yet demonstrated that he can change Tehran’s. That is his big problem.”

但要达到那个阶段，就需要迫使伊朗做出更多让步。米勒说，虽然特朗普已经表明他可以改变以色列的战略考量，“但他还没有证明自己能够改变德黑兰的考量。这是他的一大难题。”