内塔尼亚胡想把美国绑上战车
Irony is not Benjamin Netanyahu’s strong suit. Israel’s prime minister was in Washington this week to issue another of his apocalyptic warnings about Iran’s nuclear programme. He left at home the crude diagram of an Iranian bomb he had waved aloft at the UN in 2012. Yet this latest theatre offered another reminder that no one has been so diligent as its present leader in disarming the state of Israel.
讽刺并不是本雅明•内塔尼亚胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)的强项。这位以色列总理上周在华盛顿发表了他对伊朗核计划的又一次世界末日警告。2012年他曾在联合国(UN)展示一张粗糙的伊朗核弹图表，这一次他将那张图表留在了家里。不过他最新的这次表演再次令人们想到，在给以色列拆台方面，没有人像该国的现任领导人这么卖力。
Unsurprisingly, Mr Netanyahu won warm applause from his Republican friends in the US Congress. House Speaker John Boehner never misses an opportunity to embarrass President Barack Obama. Many Democrats stayed away. What should worry Israelis is that beyond Capitol Hill no one else is listening. The bellicose intransigence that Mr Netanyahu has made his trademark lost him the backing of Europeans long ago. By traducing Mr Obama in the company of Republicans he shattered trust with the White House.
不出所料，内塔尼亚胡从他在美国国会的共和党盟友那儿赢得了热烈掌声。众议院议长约翰•博纳(John Boehner)从不错过一个为难巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)总统的机会。许多民主党人缺席了这场演讲。以色列人应该担心的是，在国会山以外，没一个人会听内塔尼亚胡的演讲。好战和毫不妥协已成了内塔尼亚胡的标志，这种态度早就令他失去了欧洲人的支持。现在他在共和党人的圈子里中伤奥巴马，破坏了白宫的信任。There lies one irony. Mr Netanyahu has stripped himself of credibility. Whatever this Israeli government now says — sensible or otherwise — about the indisputable risks of any nuclear deal with Tehran will be generally discounted as the raving of someone forever set on another Middle East war. A statesman would have made Israel a partner to the six-power talks. Angry shouting from the sidelines has left Mr Netanyahu, well, alone on the sidelines.
这里有一个极大的讽刺。内塔尼亚胡主动抛弃了自己的可信度。无论本届以色列政府对于与伊朗的任何核协议都无疑存在的风险再怎么说，也无论这些言论理智与否，基本上都会被人忽视，被当作某个一直想挑起又一场中东战争的人的胡言乱语。一个政治家本应让以色列成为伊朗核问题六方会谈的一员。可是内塔尼亚胡却选择在场外愤怒咆哮，当然，这确实让他被挡在场外。
Israel’s drift towards isolation is not just about Iran. The rising swell of opinion pushing the international community towards formal recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN can be traced directly to the headlong expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas would have to make big concessions in any serious peace negotiation. It has been given a free pass. Why should it move when the Israeli leader openly scorns US peace efforts and, week by week, shows contempt for the notion of two states by grabbing more Palestinian land?
让以色列逐渐走向孤立的不只是伊朗核问题。高涨的舆论正将国际社会推向在联合国正式承认巴勒斯坦的国家地位，这些舆论可直接归因于以色列在其占领的约旦河西岸急速扩建非法定居点。马哈茂德•阿巴斯(Mahmoud Abbas)的巴勒斯坦民族权力机构(Palestinian Authority)本来不得不在任何认真的和平谈判中作出重大让步，可它被授予了免费通行证。当以色列领导人公开嘲笑美国的和平努力，而且一周又一周地蚕食巴勒斯坦土地，表现出对两国解决方案的蔑视时，巴勒斯坦方面凭什么要作出让步？Nothing if not immodest, Mr Netanyahu called his US trip a “fateful, even historic, mission”. He styles himself a latter-day Winston Churchill — a vanity happily indulged by Mr Boehner. Many Israelis take a different view. Opposition politicians charged he had poisoned relations with the US in an effort to grab headlines two weeks ahead of a general election that he could yet lose to Labor’s Isaac Herzog.
内塔尼亚胡大言不惭地称自己的美国之行是一次“决定性的，甚至是历史性的使命”。他自诩为现代的温斯顿•丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)，而博纳乐滋滋地纵容着他的虚荣。许多以色列人持有不同看法。以色列将在两周后举行大选，内塔尼亚胡仍有可能输给工党的艾萨克•赫尔佐格(Isaac Herzog)，反对党政界人士指责内塔尼亚胡为了在大选两周前抢占头条，毒化了以色列与美国的关系。More tellingly, an array of former senior officials and generals from the country’s security establishment said the grandstanding was a “clear and present danger to the security of the state of Israel”. The rift with Mr Obama, they stated, had imperilled bipartisan US support for Israel and made an enemy of its most vital friend.
更说明问题的是，以色列安全部门一大批前高级官员和将领表示，这种哗众取宠对“以色列国家安全构成了一种明确而现实的危险”。他们表示，跟奥巴马的关系闹僵，危及美国两党对以色列的共同支持，把以色列最重要的朋友变成了敌人。These Israeli grandees might have added that by turning Iran into a partisan issue Mr Netanyahu has actually made it easier for Mr Obama to strike a framework deal with Iran before the end-March deadline. US support for Israel does not mean Americans are content to see an Israeli prime minister trying to propel their president into a war. Most, I would guess, have had enough of military adventures in the Middle East. As for the other parties to the six-power talks, Mr Netanyahu’s latest volley will have simply confirmed long accumulated preconceptions.
这些以色列政要还可以补充称，内塔尼亚胡把伊朗问题搞成一个党派问题，实际上使奥巴马更容易在3月底的截止期限前与伊朗达成一份框架协议。美国官方支持以色列，并不意味着美国人乐于看到以色列总理鼓动美国总统投入一场战争。我猜，大多数美国人已受够了中东军事冒险。在六方会谈的其他参与方看来，内塔尼亚胡最近的一连串出击只是验证了各方长期积累的先入之见。A second irony, of course, is that the Israeli prime minister is right when he says that the outline bargain on the table with Iran is fraught with risks. Tehran’s role as a sponsor of Hizbollah and vital prop for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad tells you all you need to know about the regime. A promise to reduce its stocks of uranium, scale down enrichment and submit to international scrutiny and inspection is not a guarantee that the regime will not seek to make a bomb.
当然，第二个讽刺在于，以色列总理表示，目前与伊朗达成协议的框架存在多种风险，他这么说没错。德黑兰方面支持真主党(Hizbollah)，撑起叙利亚的巴沙尔•阿萨德(Bashar al-Assad)，都暴露了这个政权的本质。承诺降低铀库存、缩小铀浓缩活动规模并接受国际监督与检查，不能保证该政权不寻求制造核弹。Mr Netanyahu says the alternative is to ratchet up sanctions until Iran abjures all nuclear activity, civilian as well as military. He knows, though, that is fantasy. Both the means and the end are implausible. Sanctions would never force Tehran to make such a commitment, nor stop it from building a bomb.
内塔尼亚胡表示，另一选项是加大制裁力度，直到伊朗宣誓放弃一切核活动，无论民用还是军用。不过，他知道，那只是幻想。手段和目的都不可信。制裁永远不会强迫伊朗做出如此承诺，也不能阻止其建造核弹。No, what the Israeli leader really wants is a US-led war against Iran. What he also fails to say is that a new Middle East conflagration would be even less likely to snuff out Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Bombing Iran would more likely convince hardliners that a nuclear capability was the only sure guarantee against US-imposed regime change.
不，这位以色列领导人真正想要的是一场美国领导的对伊朗战争。另一句他没说出的话是，一场新的中东大火将甚至更不可能掐灭伊朗的核野心。轰炸伊朗将更可能让强硬派相信，核武力量是对抗美国强加的政权更迭的唯一保证。Iran has mastered the nuclear cycle. It also has what the experts call a “breakout capability”; sufficient material to produce at least one device, probably several. The knowledge cannot be bombed away. Nor, unless air attacks are open-ended, can outside powers prevent Iran from building new nuclear facilities secure against such raids.
伊朗已掌握了核循环，也拥有了专家所谓的“突破能力”：即拥有了足够材料、能造出至少一枚核弹，很可能是好几枚。相关知识是无法通过轰炸摧毁的。除非展开无限期空中打击，否则外部力量也不能阻止伊朗建造可抵御空袭的新核设施。Facing the severe pain of sanctions, compounded by the sharp fall in oil prices, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has offered the west an opening that might change the dynamics of the relationship. For his part, Mr Obama is ready to accept a deal sufficiently robust to provide one year’s notice of any attempt to build a bomb.
面对制裁的巨大痛苦，加上油价大幅下跌，伊朗总统哈桑•鲁哈尼(Hassan Rouhani)已向西方开了一个口子，双方关系的格局有望改变。在奥巴马方面，他已准备好接受一项协议——协议条款要足够严格，使外界能提前一年了解伊朗建造核弹的任何企图。Susan Rice, Mr Obama’s national security adviser, says the US approach is to “distrust but verify”. That is not a bad summation. If the terms are nailed down — and there is still no certainty Tehran will accept them — such a bargain will be an imperfect compromise with one of the world’s more unpleasant and dangerous regimes. That would be a lot better than a futile war.
奥巴马的国家安全顾问苏珊•赖斯(Susan Rice)表示，美国的立场是“不信任，但仍要去核实”。这总结得不错。如果相关条款能堵住任何漏洞——仍不确定伊朗是否会接受——这样一份协议将是与世界上最讨厌最危险的政权之一达成的不完美妥协。这种妥协将比一场徒劳的战争好得多。
