风起云涌乱战之地 时势造就ISIS的崛起

For those whose knowledge of the Islamic State is limited to televised beheadings, “The Rise of ISIS,” on PBS’s “Frontline” on Tuesday, is required viewing.

那些对伊斯兰国的了解仅限于电视上斩首画面的人，一定要看看周二PBS频道“前线”(Fronline)栏目的《ISIS的崛起》(The Rise of ISIS)。

Reported by Martin Smith, the hourlong program takes the story of this brutal, ever-growing militant group back to the final departure of American troops from Iraq in 2011. It’s a dense, fast-moving narrative focused on the failure of the Shiite-led Iraqi government to share power with the Sunni minority and the inaction of the United States while Sunni militants exploited the situation for their own gain. Blame is placed, quite directly, on the former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and on President Obama.

这个时长一小时的节目由马丁·史密斯(Martin Smith)报道，他从2011年美国终于从伊拉克撤军开始，讲述这个不断壮大的残暴军事组织的故事。这个片子情节紧凑，快速推进，重点讲述什叶派领导的伊拉克政府未能与逊尼派少数族群共享政权，以及在逊尼派激进分子利用局势谋取自身利益时美国的迟钝。该片直接对伊拉克前总理努里·卡迈勒·马利基(Nuri Kamal al-Maliki)总理和奥巴马总统进行了指责。

You have to trust, to some extent, the way in which Mr. Smith and his producing team have shaped their account, because they don’t make much room for dissenting voices. Mr. Maliki does not appear, though several of the prominent Sunni politicians he sidelined do. Among the reporters, analysts and American officials who are interviewed — including two former ambassadors to Iraq; the former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta; and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — only one, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, speaks in full defense of the Obama administration’s policies.

从某种程度上讲，你不得不信任史密斯和他的制作团队的讲述方式，因为他们没有留出太多可供争议空间。马利基没有在节目中出现，但受其冷落的几位著名的逊尼派政客出现了。在接受采访的记者、分析家和美国官员中，包括两位前驻伊拉克大使、前国防部长利昂·E·帕内塔(Leon E. Panetta)和参谋长联席会议主席马丁·E·邓普西上将(Martin E. Dempsey)等。只有一位受访者完全支持奥巴马政府的政策，那就是副国家安全顾问本·罗兹(Ben Rhodes)。

Just about everything in “The Rise of ISIS” is already a matter of public record, though — the Islamic State had been thoroughly reported on by publications before it burst into the public consciousness. The program’s value is as a primer, intelligently and compellingly elucidating the Shiite-Sunni divide and telling the story of Iraq, primarily, and Syria since the American military’s exit.

《ISIS的崛起》中的内容几乎都是公共记录，很多媒体在伊斯兰国突然引起公众注意之前已经对其做过充分报道。这个节目的价值在于，作为基本介绍，它聪明而引人入胜地阐述了什叶派和逊尼派的分歧，讲述了美军撤出后伊拉克（主要是伊拉克）和叙利亚的情况。

The interviews are surrounded by a flood of imagery that will have a mesmerizing or numbing effect, depending on your disposition — a steady montage of protests, bombings, battle footage and very disturbing militant videos of serial executions. (The beheadings of Western captives are not shown.)

除了采访，其他部分的蒙太奇画面让你着迷或者让你麻木（这取决于你的倾向）——抗议、轰炸、战斗画面，以及非常令人不安的、激进的系列处决视频（没有播放西方俘虏的斩首画面）。

Mr. Smith, working a few weeks or months behind events, can refer only glancingly to the current siege of Kobani, Syria. He ends with a grim suggestion that Baghdad will be next and with the question of whether American troops will eventually need to return to the region. Mr. Rhodes fields that one in his best bureaucratese: “The president is very confident and comfortable with a limiting principle as it relates to combat forces on the ground.”

史密斯的叙述近涵盖了这些事件所发生的那几周或几个月的时间，仅粗略提及目前ISIS对叙利亚科巴尼(Kobani)的围攻。在节目尾声，他冷酷地暗示巴格达将是下一个围攻目标，并且还提出一个问题——美军是否最终需要回到该区域。罗兹用他最擅长的官腔回答说：“总统对地面作战部队采取克制原则很有信心，也很放心。”