美國不應重啓遏制伊朗戰略 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.

對巴拉克攠巴馬(Barack Obama)而言，與伊朗簽署協議結束覈對峙狀態是一項重大成就。現在的問題是這項成果能否持續。在正確地選擇外交（而非戰爭）手段來解決伊朗核問題後，美國總統如今面臨着失策的風險。這項核協議只有找到一條擴大接觸的路徑，才能成爲一項經久的政治遺產。然而美國官方堅稱，其它一切都不會變。

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.

華盛頓現在有一種奇怪的共識——既然美國已說服德黑蘭用停止鈾濃縮來換取制裁的解除，伊朗必須被重新打回外交孤立的狀態。我之所以說奇怪，是因爲該協議的支持者和反對者似乎都同意這一觀點；而更奇怪的是這違背了協議的根本邏輯。先是提出我們應該與伊朗在戰略上至關重要的核擴散問題上討價還價、但之後又拒絕與伊朗討論其他任何事情，這算什麼主張？而且這種觀點盛行之際，中東大片地區戰火紛飛。

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.

美國的老盟友們強烈反對任何協議的勁頭——沙特高官尖酸刻薄地稱奧巴馬“轉向伊朗”—使白宮不得不再三保證美國不會拋棄遜尼派阿拉伯人，讓其面對什葉派伊朗的霸權。奧巴馬政府也不得不平息國會中的強大阻力，其中很大一部分阻力是以色列總理本雅明蔠呑尼亞胡(Benjamin Netanyahu)推動的。

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.

於是美國向沙特和海灣國家提供先進的武器系統。以色列沒有因爲內塔尼亞胡可恥地企圖攪亂美國的政治進程而受到指責。丟臉的是，奧巴馬還對阿卜杜勒法塔赫帠罘(Abdel Fattah al-Sisi)執政的埃及暴力鎮壓民主的行爲視而不見。

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.

德黑蘭在中東地區煽動宗派戰火的記錄，似乎很難讓人支持擴大接觸。伊朗是敘利亞巴沙爾阿薩德(Bashar al-Assad)兇殘政權的公然支持者。伊朗革命衛隊(Revolutionary Guard)的聖城軍（Quds force，一支在境外行動的精銳部隊——譯者注）在黎巴嫩培訓和武裝真主黨(Hizbollah)，在加沙支持哈馬斯(Hamas)。德黑蘭支持胡塞(Houthi)叛軍，後者把也門變成了一個與敘利亞、利比亞和伊拉克一樣支離破碎的國家。它力挺伊拉克的什葉派宗派主義，並以敵視以色列洋洋得意。沒錯，伊朗想要成爲地區強國，不，德黑蘭絕對不是一個仁慈的政權。

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.

於是，在簽署協議之前，美國國務卿約翰克里(John Kerry)向美國的盟友們保證“協議簽訂後，就該地區其他所有對我們構成挑戰的問題而言，不會有任何變化”。以狹隘的觀點看，這並不令人意外。克里堅稱，沒有人在談論和德黑蘭達成“大交易”(grand bargain)。美國仍然會制衡伊朗的實力，確保海灣地區安全。

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.

這不令人意外，但不合邏輯。美國政府死板地把伊朗棄核與地區衝突隔離開來，破壞了在覈問題上接觸的根本戰略目的。目的肯定是通過改變德黑蘭的動機來重塑地緣政治格局。簽署一項阻止伊朗核野心的協議，從來不會結束沙特和伊朗之間的代理人戰爭。不過，它本可以起到晃動萬花筒的效果。

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.

如果美國重新啓用高壓遏制的戰略，就會失去這個機會。把暫停核計劃變成永久棄核的機會也將失去。選擇談判（而不是內塔尼亞胡所渴望的戰爭）的思路依據是這樣一個理解：達成協議是阻止德黑蘭加入核武俱樂部的唯一靠譜辦法。

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.

更嚴厲的制裁本來會重創伊朗，轟炸或許可以推遲核計劃，但如果要確保伊朗棄核，西方必須說服伊朗：沒有核武器的話，它的日子會更加好過。在此過程中，美國將不得不向阿亞圖拉阿里哈梅內伊(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)保證，美方不再推動伊朗政權更迭。這兩點對確保核協議持久有效與對達成協議同樣關鍵。

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.

德黑蘭的現政權絕對不是討人喜歡的。在國外從事破壞，在國內實行高壓統治。與這樣的政權接觸永遠不會讓人自在。但是伊朗既不能被忽視，也不可能被無限期地遏制。伊朗是一個人口衆多、潛在非常富有的國家，一個擁有迅速壯大的中產階層的古老文明，還擁有比所謂“溫和”阿拉伯國家更接近民主的政體。任何想象得到的地區安全安排，都必然要照顧伊朗的實力。

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.

這一切意味着，若沒有德黑蘭的合作，中東地區的任何衝突——包括敘利亞內戰、自稱“伊拉克與黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant，簡稱Isis)的武裝分子、以及也門的叛亂——都無法平息。

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.

如果說這對華盛頓來說是一個令人不安的事實，那麼美國盟友的舉動肯定也是。伊斯蘭暴力極端主義在伊拉克和敘利亞得勢，部分原因就是遜尼派立場曖昧。沙特仍然在對外輸出瓦哈比教義，爲聖戰恐怖主義的滋生提供溫牀。在西方國家轟炸極端分子時，土耳其趁機攻擊與聖戰分子作戰的庫爾德武裝。最頑強的外交政策現實主義者在世界的這個角落也必定會皺起眉頭。