美国不应重启遏制伊朗战略 Obama gets it right and wrong about Iran

For Barack Obama the deal ending the nuclear stand-off with Iran was a signal achievement. The question now is whether it will last. Having got it right in choosing diplomacy over war, the US president now risks getting it wrong. The nuclear deal will prove a durable legacy only if it maps a path to something bigger. Yet the US has been insisting that nothing else will change.

对巴拉克攠巴马(Barack Obama)而言，与伊朗签署协议结束核对峙状态是一项重大成就。现在的问题是这项成果能否持续。在正确地选择外交（而非战争）手段来解决伊朗核问题后，美国总统如今面临着失策的风险。这项核协议只有找到一条扩大接触的路径，才能成为一项经久的政治遗产。然而美国官方坚称，其它一切都不会变。

There is a curious consensus in Washington that says that now it has persuaded Tehran to trade uranium enrichment for sanctions relief, Iran must be returned to diplomatic isolation. I say curious because the view seems to be shared by supporters as well as opponents of the agreement; and more curious still because it defies the very logic of that accord. What is the argument that says we should bargain with Iran about so strategically vital an issue as nuclear proliferation but then refuse to talk to it about anything else? And this as much of the Middle East burns.

华盛顿现在有一种奇怪的共识——既然美国已说服德黑兰用停止铀浓缩来换取制裁的解除，伊朗必须被重新打回外交孤立的状态。我之所以说奇怪，是因为该协议的支持者和反对者似乎都同意这一观点；而更奇怪的是这违背了协议的根本逻辑。先是提出我们应该与伊朗在战略上至关重要的核扩散问题上讨价还价、但之后又拒绝与伊朗讨论其他任何事情，这算什么主张？而且这种观点盛行之际，中东大片地区战火纷飞。

The ferocity of the opposition to any deal with America’s old allies — senior Saudis talk scathingly of Mr Obama’s “pivot to Iran” — made it inevitable that the White House would offer reassurance it is not abandoning Sunni Arabs to the hegemony of Shia Iran. The administration had also to neutralise powerful resistance in Congress, much of it fuelled by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

美国的老盟友们强烈反对任何协议的劲头——沙特高官尖酸刻薄地称奥巴马“转向伊朗”—使白宫不得不再三保证美国不会抛弃逊尼派阿拉伯人，让其面对什叶派伊朗的霸权。奥巴马政府也不得不平息国会中的强大阻力，其中很大一部分阻力是以色列总理本雅明蔠呑尼亚胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)推动的。

So Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have been offered sophisticated weapons systems. Israel has escaped retribution for Mr Netanyahu’s scandalous effort to subvert the US political process. To his great discredit, Mr Obama has also turned a blind eye to the violent suppression of democracy in Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s Egypt.

于是美国向沙特和海湾国家提供先进的武器系统。以色列没有因为内塔尼亚胡可耻地企图搅乱美国的政治进程而受到指责。丢脸的是，奥巴马还对阿卜杜勒法塔赫帠罘(Abdel Fattah al-Sisi)执政的埃及暴力镇压民主的行为视而不见。

Tehran’s record in stoking the sectarian fires in the region scarcely makes an obvious case for wider engagement. Iran is an unabashed supporter of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria. The Quds force of its Revolutionary Guard trains and equips Hizbollah in Lebanon and sponsors Hamas in Gaza. Tehran backs the Houthi rebels who have turned Yemen into another broken state alongside Syria, Libya and Iraq. It underwrites Shia sectarianism in Iraq, and exults in its enmity towards Israel. And, yes, it would like to be the pre-eminent power in its neighbourhood. No, this is not at all a nice regime.

德黑兰在中东地区煽动宗派战火的记录，似乎很难让人支持扩大接触。伊朗是叙利亚巴沙尔阿萨德(Bashar al-Assad)凶残政权的公然支持者。伊朗革命卫队(Revolutionary Guard)的圣城军（Quds force，一支在境外行动的精锐部队——译者注）在黎巴嫩培训和武装真主党(Hizbollah)，在加沙支持哈马斯(Hamas)。德黑兰支持胡塞(Houthi)叛军，后者把也门变成了一个与叙利亚、利比亚和伊拉克一样支离破碎的国家。它力挺伊拉克的什叶派宗派主义，并以敌视以色列洋洋得意。没错，伊朗想要成为地区强国，不，德黑兰绝对不是一个仁慈的政权。

So, taking a narrow view, it was unsurprising that in advance of the deal, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, sought to assure America’s allies that “nothing will be different the day after this agreement.. respect to all the other issues that challenge us in this region”. No one, Mr Kerry insisted, was talking about a grand bargain with Tehran. The US would remain the counter to Iranian power and guarantor of Gulf security.

于是，在签署协议之前，美国国务卿约翰克里(John Kerry)向美国的盟友们保证“协议签订后，就该地区其他所有对我们构成挑战的问题而言，不会有任何变化”。以狭隘的观点看，这并不令人意外。克里坚称，没有人在谈论和德黑兰达成“大交易”(grand bargain)。美国仍然会制衡伊朗的实力，确保海湾地区安全。

Unsurprising, but illogical. By seeking hermetically to seal off Iran’s disavowal of the bomb from the wider conflicts, the US administration undercuts the essential strategic purpose of engagement on the nuclear dossier. The aim surely was to reshape the geopolitical dynamics by changing the balance of incentives in Tehran. A deal to forestall Iran’s nuclear ambitions was never going to put an end to the proxy wars between Saudis and Iranians. It would, though, shake the kaleidoscope.

这不令人意外，但不合逻辑。美国政府死板地把伊朗弃核与地区冲突隔离开来，破坏了在核问题上接触的根本战略目的。目的肯定是通过改变德黑兰的动机来重塑地缘政治格局。签署一项阻止伊朗核野心的协议，从来不会结束沙特和伊朗之间的代理人战争。不过，它本可以起到晃动万花筒的效果。

The opportunity will be lost if the US reverts to a strategy of coercive containment. So too will the chance to turn what is after all a temporary nuclear moratorium into a permanent disavowal of the bomb. The choice of negotiation over Mr Netanyahu’s eagerness for war was informed by an understanding that an agreement offers the only foolproof way of preventing Tehran from joining the nuclear club.

如果美国重新启用高压遏制的战略，就会失去这个机会。把暂停核计划变成永久弃核的机会也将失去。选择谈判（而不是内塔尼亚胡所渴望的战争）的思路依据是这样一个理解：达成协议是阻止德黑兰加入核武俱乐部的唯一靠谱办法。

Tougher sanctions would have hurt Iran, and bombing might have delayed the nuclear programme, but to be sure, the west had to persuade Iran it was better off without the bomb. Along the way, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had to be assured that Washington was no longer in the business of promoting regime change. Those two insights are as vital to securing the permanence of the deal as they were to reaching it.

更严厉的制裁本来会重创伊朗，轰炸或许可以推迟核计划，但如果要确保伊朗弃核，西方必须说服伊朗：没有核武器的话，它的日子会更加好过。在此过程中，美国将不得不向阿亚图拉阿里哈梅内伊(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)保证，美方不再推动伊朗政权更迭。这两点对确保核协议持久有效与对达成协议同样关键。

The present regime in Tehran is anything but pleasant. Destructive abroad, it is deeply repressive at home. Engagement will never be comfortable. But Iran can neither be ignored nor indefinitely contained. It is a populous and potentially very rich nation, an ancient civilisation with a burgeoning middle class and, incidentally, has something more closely resembling democracy than the so-called “moderate” Arab states. Any imaginable security arrangements for the region must necessarily accommodate Iranian power.

德黑兰的现政权绝对不是讨人喜欢的。在国外从事破坏，在国内实行高压统治。与这样的政权接触永远不会让人自在。但是伊朗既不能被忽视，也不可能被无限期地遏制。伊朗是一个人口众多、潜在非常富有的国家，一个拥有迅速壮大的中产阶层的古老文明，还拥有比所谓“温和”阿拉伯国家更接近民主的政体。任何想象得到的地区安全安排，都必然要照顾伊朗的实力。

The corollary is that none of the fires in the region — the Syrian civil war, the rise of self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the insurrection in Yemen among them — can be damped without the collaboration of Tehran.

这一切意味着，若没有德黑兰的合作，中东地区的任何冲突——包括叙利亚内战、自称“伊拉克与黎凡特伊斯兰国”(Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant，简称Isis)的武装分子、以及也门的叛乱——都无法平息。

If that is an uncomfortable fact for Washington, so too must be the behaviour of America’s allies. Violent Islamist extremism has gained purchase in Iraq and Syria in part because of Sunni ambivalence. Saudi Arabia still exports the Wahhabi theology that plants the seeds of jihadi terror. As western nations bomb the extremists, Turkey is attacking the Kurdish forces fighting the jihadis on the ground. The most hard-bitten foreign policy realists must hold their noses in this part of the world.

如果说这对华盛顿来说是一个令人不安的事实，那么美国盟友的举动肯定也是。伊斯兰暴力极端主义在伊拉克和叙利亚得势，部分原因就是逊尼派立场暧昧。沙特仍然在对外输出瓦哈比教义，为圣战恐怖主义的滋生提供温床。在西方国家轰炸极端分子时，土耳其趁机攻击与圣战分子作战的库尔德武装。最顽强的外交政策现实主义者在世界的这个角落也必定会皱起眉头。