By Chen Wenxin / 陈文鑫

Director, Institute of American Studies, MSS-affiliated China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations

Source: Qiushi, 2026/08

https://www.qstheory.cn/20260415/dc444d1e6f10426e9d9af2b77ac0ca31/c.html

Created by Claude via Sincocism.com

Since the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026, the situation in the Middle East has continued to escalate. Washington had hoped to replicate the pattern of its strike on Venezuela at the start of the year, attempting to achieve its objectives through a string of "low-cost" airstrikes. Yet the conflict has not delivered the quick victory Washington expected. Under effective Iranian counterattack, U.S. war costs have continued to climb and have spilled over into the economic and even geopolitical spheres, stoking public dissatisfaction and leaving the United States caught in a dilemma. What, exactly, is the nature of the entanglement between the United States and Iran? Why did the current U.S. administration insist on launching military strikes against Iran? And what will the conflict bring for the United States?

自2026年2月28日美国和以色列对伊朗发动军事打击以来，中东乱局持续升级。美国本想复刻新年伊始打击委内瑞拉的模式，企图以一连串"低成本"的空袭行动实现既定目标。然而，这场冲突并未像美国预计的那样实现速战速决。在伊朗有效反击之下，美国战争成本不断抬升，并外溢至经济乃至地缘政治领域，引发民众不满，也令其陷入进退维谷的境地。美国与伊朗究竟有怎样的纠葛，现任美国政府为何执意要对伊朗发动军事打击，这场冲突又将给美国带来怎样的影响？

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一

Iran sits in the critical region of the Middle East, controlling the Strait of Hormuz to its south and facing Russia and other countries across the Caspian Sea to its north. Its oil reserves account for roughly 10 percent of the world's total, and it exerts an outsized influence on the security and stability of global energy markets. Iran also wields powerful influence over religious and ethnic issues in the Middle East, placing it in an exceptionally important position within the U.S. hegemonic architecture in the region. As the United States emerged from the Second World War as the world's leading power, its Iran policy grew steadily entwined with its global strategy of contesting and defending hegemony — moving through phases of propping up proxies, comprehensive containment, engagement-and-balancing, and maximum pressure. The U.S.-Iran relationship travelled from alliance to mortal enmity, from intimacy to armed confrontation.

伊朗地处中东这一关键地区，南控霍尔木兹海峡，北隔里海与俄罗斯等国相望，其石油储量约占世界10%，对世界能源市场的安全和稳定具有非常重要的影响。此外，伊朗对中东地区的宗教及民族问题有着强大的影响力，因此在美国中东霸权格局中占据着极为重要的位置。随着二战后美国一跃成为世界头号强国，美对伊政策逐渐与美争霸护霸的全球战略深度绑定，历经扶植代理、全面遏制、接触制衡、极限施压，美伊关系从盟友到死敌，从亲密无间到刀兵相向。

During World War II, the United States moved troops into Iran and made claims on Iranian oil resources — this was the starting point of American interference in Iran. In 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the oil resources then held by Britain, seeking to reclaim the country's oil wealth. This triggered strong Anglo-American backlash. In 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom jointly toppled the Mosaddegh government, which had championed nationalization, and engineered the restoration of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Pahlavi regime pursued an extremely pro-American foreign policy, opening a honeymoon of nearly a quarter-century in U.S.-Iran relations. During that period, Iran actively helped the United States maintain hegemony in the Middle East and beyond, and the United States in turn extended all manner of support to the Pahlavi regime: the Eisenhower administration exported civilian nuclear technology to Iran under the "Atoms for Peace" program, and the Nixon administration launched the "twin-pillars" Middle East policy, designating Iran and Saudi Arabia as core U.S. allies for regional hegemony and authorizing Iran to purchase advanced American weapons, turning it into Washington's "proxy" in the Gulf. The U.S. government also backed the Pahlavi regime's secular "White Revolution" — a reform that completely ignored Iran's domestic religious traditions, produced results far short of popular expectations, and allowed anti-American sentiment within Iran to fester.

二战期间，美国派军队开进伊朗，并对伊朗的石油资源提出诉求，这是美国干涉伊朗的起点。1951年，伊朗议会投票决定将被英国占有的石油资源国有化，试图重新掌控国家石油财富，引起美英的强烈不满。1953年，美英联手推翻主张石油国有化的摩萨台政权，扶植巴列维国王复辟。巴列维政权奉行极其亲美的外交路线，美伊关系近四分之一世纪的蜜月期随之开启。在此期间，伊朗积极协助美国在中东甚至中东之外维持霸权，美国反过来给予巴列维政权各种支持：艾森豪威尔政府通过"原子为和平计划"向伊朗输出民用核技术；尼克松政府推出"中东双支柱政策"，将伊朗和沙特列为美国维护地区霸权的核心盟友，授权伊朗采购各种美制先进武器，使其成为美在海湾地区的"代理人"。美国政府还支持巴列维政权推动世俗化"白色革命"，但这一改革完全忽视伊朗国内宗教传统，改革实效与民众期望存在巨大差距，致使伊朗国内反美民意持续发酵。

In 1979, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran; the religious leader Khomeini led the establishment of the Islamic Republic and pursued a resolutely anti-American line, wiping out decades of American cultivation in the country. That November, the "Iran hostage crisis" broke out, crystallizing Iranian popular anger at U.S. interference in Iranian internal affairs: the U.S. embassy in Tehran was twice stormed, 52 diplomatic personnel were held for 444 days, and the military operation to rescue them was aborted after the loss of eight servicemen. That episode was the fundamental turning point in U.S.-Iran relations. Iran went from a former U.S. ally to a country posing "an extraordinary threat to the national security, economy, and diplomacy of the United States." On April 7, 1980, the United States formally severed diplomatic relations with Iran and imposed economic sanctions. After the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War, the Clinton administration rolled out a "dual containment" policy toward Iran and Iraq marked by hard-line pressure, isolation, and blockade, taking concrete form as a comprehensive ban on U.S.-Iran trade and investment. After 9/11, even though Iran undertook a series of concrete actions in support of the U.S. counterterrorism effort, the George W. Bush administration still named Iran in its 2002 State of the Union as part of the so-called "axis of evil." That same year, Iran's nuclear facilities were exposed, and the nuclear issue became the core of U.S.-Iran contestation. Washington bound the disruption of Iran's nuclear program to the goal of regime change, pushed the international community into successive rounds of sanctions, openly supported the Iranian opposition, and sought to destroy the Iranian regime outright — U.S.-Iran confrontation entered a phase of deep ideological and security opposition.

1979年，伊朗爆发伊斯兰革命，宗教领袖霍梅尼领导建立伊斯兰共和国，实行坚决反美的政策，使美国在伊长达数十年的经营化为乌有。同年11月爆发的"伊朗人质危机"，凸显了伊朗民众对美干涉伊内政的强烈不满，美国驻伊朗大使馆两次遭到冲击、52名外交人员被押444天，营救人质的军事行动在损失8名武装人员后遭挫败。这一事件也成为美伊关系的根本转折点，伊朗从美国的昔日盟友转变成一个"对美国的国家安全、经济和外交产生非同寻常的威胁"的国家。美国因此于1980年4月7日正式宣布同伊朗断交，并对伊实施经济制裁。之后，随着冷战结束和海湾战争爆发，克林顿政府推出对伊朗和伊拉克的"双重遏制"政策，特点是强硬、施压、隔绝、封禁，具体表现为全面禁止美伊贸易与投资。"9·11"事件爆发后，虽然伊朗采取了一系列实际行动支持美国反恐，但小布什政府在2002年的国情咨文中仍将伊朗列为所谓的"邪恶轴心"之一。同年，伊朗核设施曝光，核问题成为美伊博弈的核心。美国将破坏伊朗核计划与政权更迭目标绑定，推动国际社会实施多轮制裁，公开支持伊朗境内的反对派，试图彻底摧毁伊朗政权，美伊对抗进入意识形态与安全的深度对立。

After the Obama administration took office in 2009, seeking to ease Middle East strategic overextension and to advance its Asia-Pacific rebalance, it emphasized a combination of political, economic, and diplomatic tools and implemented an "engagement plus containment" policy toward Iran. On one hand, it proactively signaled goodwill, opened direct U.S.-Iran dialogue through public and secret channels to break decades of top-level isolation, and laid the political foundation for nuclear talks. On the other hand, it stepped up intelligence collection and infiltration, launched cyber attacks to slow Iran's nuclear development, and pushed the UN and the EU to tighten financial and oil sanctions, squeezing Iran's negotiating space. At the same time, it shepherded talks between the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) and Iran on the nuclear issue, reaching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal) in 2015. Under the agreement, Iran would sharply reduce its centrifuges, limit uranium enrichment levels, and accept strict international verification, in exchange for phased Western sanctions relief — putting the nuclear issue under institutional control. This Obama-era turn was an attempt to trade sanctions relief for nuclear restraint through diplomacy, but it could not resolve the deep U.S.-Iran contradictions; ideological and regional-hegemony disagreements between the two sides remained.

2009年奥巴马政府上台后，为缓解中东战略消耗、推进亚太再平衡战略，强调使用政治、经济、外交等综合手段，对伊朗实施"接触+遏制"政策。一方面，在外交上主动释放善意，通过公开和秘密渠道开启美伊直接对话，打破两国高层数十年隔绝状态，为伊核问题谈判创造政治基础。另一方面，加大对伊情报搜集和渗透力度，实施网络攻击以迟滞伊朗核技术开发进程，推动联合国与欧盟加码金融、石油制裁，挤压伊朗谈判空间。同时，推动联合国安理会5个常任理事国加上德国与伊朗围绕伊核问题展开谈判，并于2015年达成《联合全面行动计划》（也称伊核协议）。根据协议，伊朗将大幅削减离心机、限制铀浓缩丰度并接受严格国际核查，换取西方分阶段解除制裁，实现核问题的制度化管控。奥巴马政府对伊政策的这一转向，是希望通过外交手段，以"解除制裁"换取伊朗核限制，但这并不能解决美伊深层矛盾，双方在意识形态与地区霸权上的分歧依然存在。

In 2017, the new U.S. administration, immediately upon taking office, explicitly rejected the nuclear deal, calling it a "bad and unfair agreement" and arguing that easing sanctions had given Iran breathing room. It unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and reimposed the so-called "toughest unilateral sanctions," aiming to drive Iranian oil exports to "zero" and sever Iran's fiscal lifeline. Although the Biden administration tried to return to the JCPOA, it retained the original sanctions while adding new ones, and continued to rely on regional allies such as Israel to contain Iran. Mutual distrust deepened and U.S.-Iran talks repeatedly stalled. In 2025, after the current administration took office, it further escalated pressure on Iran. In June that year, the U.S. government announced that it had "successfully struck" and "thoroughly eliminated" three Iranian nuclear facilities, marking the entry of the U.S.-Iran relationship into a new phase of direct military confrontation.

2017年，新一届美国政府上台之初就明确反对伊核协议，称其为"糟糕的不公平协议"，认为放宽制裁给了伊朗喘息之机，因此单方面退出伊核协议，重新祭出所谓"最严单边制裁"，企图将伊朗石油出口打压至"零"，切断伊朗财政收入命脉。拜登政府虽试图重返伊核协议，但对伊在保留原有制裁的基础上追加新的制裁，并继续依靠以色列等地区盟友来遏制伊朗。双方互不信任持续加深，美伊谈判屡陷僵局。2025年，现任美国政府上台后，继续升级对伊朗的施压。同年6月，美国政府宣称"成功打击"并"彻底清除"伊朗3处核设施，这标志着美伊进入直接军事对抗新阶段。

In sum, the evolution of U.S.-Iran relations to the present day is closely tied to geopolitics, oil interests, political systems, ideology, and historical grievances — but running through all of it is the United States' need to sustain regional and global hegemony.