沙特阿拉伯与ISIS的奇特关系

The death last week of Prince Saud al-Faisal, the respected statesman who had been foreign minister of Saudi Arabia for 40 years until this spring, prompted comment about the kingdom’s apparent transition from diplomacy behind the scenes to a policy of confrontation with Iran, the Sunni Arab realm’s Shia and Persian rival for regional hegemony.

费萨尔亲王(Prince Saud Al-Faisal)担任沙特外交大臣长达40年，直至今年春季才卸任。这位备受尊敬的政治家于近日病逝，外界随即评论称，沙特明显正从幕后外交转向与伊朗正面对抗。两国是争夺地区霸权的对手，沙特王国是逊尼派掌权的阿拉伯国家，而伊朗是什叶派掌权国家，人口以波斯人为主。

There is some truth in this. Prince Saud was by instinct a bridge-builder. Saudi foreign policy at the moment seems to be burning a lot of bridges. King Salman, who succeeded the late King Abdullah in January and recentralised power around himself and his family, served notice in March that he would fight Shia fire with Sunni fire.

上述说法有几分道理。费萨尔亲王天生是一位“修桥人”。目前沙特的外交政策似乎正在烧掉大量的桥梁。萨勒曼(Salman)在今年1月接替阿卜杜拉(King Abdullah)出任沙特国王，他将权力重新集中在他本人及他的家族周围。萨勒曼国王在3月份宣称，逊尼派将对什叶派以牙还牙。

The ruling House of Saud, legitimised by the kingdom’s absolutist strain of Wahhabi Islam, had watched in appalled paralysis as Iran and its proxies exploited the mayhem unleashed across Arab lands — from the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the Arab spring after 2011 — to forge a Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut.

在伊朗及其代理人利用阿拉伯地区的混乱局势——从2003年美国牵头入侵伊拉克到2011年之后的“阿拉伯之春”运动——缔结从巴格达到贝鲁特的什叶派轴心联盟之际，伊斯兰瓦哈比专制教派支持的沙特王室感到极度的震惊，并且没有还手之力。

In March the Saudis launched an air war in Yemen, claiming Iran was behind an attempt by Shia Houthi fighters to overrun the country. Three months of futile and indiscriminate bombing later, this multi-sided contest for a failed state is no closer to resolution. The Saudis, who have never managed to do much about their ungovernable southern neighbours except bribe a varying combination of tribes, know full well that Tehran has played little more than a peripheral role in their recent protagonism. The war in Yemen is more a signal of deep unhappiness at the deal the US and world powers have struck with Iran over its nuclear programme. The bombing started in late March just as the two sides worked on a framework agreement in Lausanne.

今年3月，沙特对也门发动了空袭，并宣称伊朗是什叶派胡塞(Houthi)武装分子肆虐也门的幕后主使。在经过3个月毫无成效的狂轰乱炸之后，这种多方参与的对一个失败国家的争夺仍毫无解决之计。沙特人除了贿赂诸多部落以外，从未对他们难以控制的南部邻国有过多少作为，他们清楚地知道，德黑兰在他们最近的重要行动中只不过扮演着次要角色。也门战争更多地表明，沙特对美国及其他强国与伊朗签署核协议感到极度不满。空袭也门开始于今年3月底，当时正是美伊双方在瑞士洛桑准备签署框架协议之际。

In the interim, the regional menace of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis) has not stopped the Saudi government fixating primarily on Iran and the Shia — but that was true long before the death of Prince Saud.

在此期间，“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)的地区性威胁未能阻止沙特政府把目光主要放在伊朗和什叶派上——但早在费萨尔亲王病逝前就是这种情况了。

The veteran Arab diplomat had warned the Bush administration what would happen in Iraq and the region if it went ahead with the 2003 invasion. But it was also Prince Saud, Arab officials say, who told John Kerry, US secretary of state, last summer after Isis surged back from Syria into Iraq, that “Daesh [an Arabic acronym for Isis] is our [Sunni] response to your support for the Da’wa”, the Shia Islamist party that has dominated Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime — with varying degrees of support from Washington and Tehran.

阿拉伯资深外交官曾警告布什政府称，如果推进2003年的入侵行动，伊拉克和中东地区将会陷入混乱。但阿拉伯国家的官员们表示，在ISIS从叙利亚杀回伊拉克之后，去年夏天费萨尔亲王曾向美国国务卿约翰克里(John Kerry)表示，“达伊沙（阿拉伯语对ISIS的首字母缩略词）是我们（逊尼派）对你们支持达瓦党(Da’wa)的回应”。达瓦党是自萨达姆侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)的逊尼少数派政权倒台以来在伊拉克占据主导地位的伊斯兰什叶派系，获得了华盛顿和德黑兰不同程度的支持。

Isis is, of course, a physical threat to Saudi Arabia, where online polling suggests it has alarmingly high support. But the main fear of Saudi rulers is of being outflanked on the religious right by the jihadi extremists. The competition, therefore, is between Wahhabi absolutists and the Sunni supremacists of Isis as to which of them is a more credible scourge of the Shia — branded in both ideologies as polytheist heretics and rafidah (“rejectionist”).

当然，ISIS对沙特阿拉伯造成了切实威胁，该国在线民调显示，ISIS的支持率高得惊人。但沙特统治者主要担忧的是，在宗教权利方面，他们会被作为圣战极端分子的ISIS所超过。因此，竞争是在瓦哈比专制派别和ISIS的逊尼至上主义派别之间展开的，以决定他们哪个更有可能给什叶派造成麻烦——两种教义均将什叶派贴上多神主义异教徒和拒绝派(rafidah)的标签。

The speeches of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared Isis caliph, are often marinated in pieces of Islamic lore ripped from their context and always threatening. But they repay examination. In mid-May, he labelled the Yemen operation, which the Saudis called Storm of Resolve, “the kick of a dying person”.

ISIS自封的哈里发阿布贝克尔巴格达迪(Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi)在演讲中往往夹杂着断章取义的伊斯兰教义，始终在危言恫吓。但这些演讲值得研究。今年5月中旬，巴格达迪将空袭也门行动称为“垂死之人的挣扎”——沙特称为“决心风暴”。

He mocked the Saudi air strikes as “a storm of delusion” and spoke of “the Muslim public in the Arabian Peninsula rallying around the Islamic State since it defends them against the rafidah”.

他将沙特的空袭行动嘲讽为“妄想风暴”，并表示，“阿拉伯半岛的穆斯林民众聚集在我们的周围，因为伊斯兰国帮助他们抵御拒绝派”。

Picking up on reports that Saudi Arabia had held meetings with Israel to discuss the consequences of an Iran nuclear deal, the Isis leader said the al-Saud were “not people of war” but “people of luxury and extravagance, people of intoxication, prostitution, dances and feasts...愠挀挀甀猀琀漀洀攀搀 to the defence of the Jews and Crusaders”.

巴格达迪注意到有报道称，沙特与以色列会晤以讨论伊朗核协议的影响，他表示，阿勒沙特家族“不是好战者”，他们“穷奢极欲，喜好酗酒、娼妓、跳舞和宴会……习惯于犹太人和十字军的防御”。

Isis has a record of following up such rants with action. It bombed two Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province in May and then sent a Saudi suicide bomber to kill Shia in a mosque in Kuwait City. This sectarian carnage shows that, while the Wahhabis marginalise the “rafidah”, Isis exterminates them. Such attacks also show the limits of Saudi control, in the part of the kingdom that contains most of its Shia and nearly all its oil. But if the authorities move towards conciliating the Shia, that plays very well for Isis too.

ISIS有着大放厥词之后采取相应实际行动的记录。今年5月，它轰炸了沙特东部省份的两座什叶派清真寺，随后派一名沙特人在科威特市的清真寺里实施自杀性炸弹袭击以杀害什叶派人。这种教派屠杀表明，在瓦哈比边缘化“拒绝派”的同时，ISIS在灭绝他们。此类袭击还表明，沙特在其境内的大部分什叶派居住地以及几乎全部的石油储藏地控制力有限。但如果沙特政府向着与什叶派和解的方向发展，那也非常有利于ISIS。

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy dependent on the Wahhabi clerical establishment, is purportedly a vital ally in the fight against Isis. Yet the kingdom is hoist with its own petard of religious absolutism at a time when the crumbling region around it needs the emerging detente with Iran to become eventually an entente — something Saud al-Faisal would instinctively have grasped.

沙特阿拉伯是一个依赖瓦哈比教派的君主专制国家，被认为是打击ISIS的关键盟友。然而，在陷入混乱的周边地区需要与伊朗之间新出现的缓和局面，以最终实现和解之际——费萨尔亲王会本能地明白这一点——沙特却吞下了宗教专制主义的苦果。