美國與沙特同盟爲何出現裂痕
In February 1945 President Franklin Roosevelt, on his way home from the Yalta summit with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, met King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, anchored in the Great Bitter Lake midway up the Suez Canal. Having settled the dispositions of postwar Europe, Roosevelt laid a foundation stone of the postwar Middle East. The US, in essence, would guarantee the security and integrity of Ibn Saud’s Arabian kingdom — united by the sword in 52 battles over 30 years — while the Saudis would guarantee the free flow of oil at reasonable prices.
1945年2月，美國總統富蘭克林•羅斯福(Franklin Roosevelt)與溫斯頓•丘吉爾(Winston Churchill)和約瑟夫•斯大林(Joseph Stalin)在雅爾塔舉行峯會後的回國途中，在停泊在蘇伊士運河大苦湖的美國海軍“昆西號”(USS Quincy)戰艦上會晤了沙特阿拉伯國王阿卜杜勒•阿齊茲•伊本•沙特(Abdul Aziz ibn Saud)。已經解決戰後歐洲安排問題的羅斯福，爲戰後的中東格局奠定了一塊基石。大體來說，美國將保證伊本•沙特統治的這個阿拉伯王國（用了30年、歷經52場戰爭才用武力統一）的安全和完整，而沙特將保證以合理價格輸出石油。
As US President Barack Obama arrives on a valedictory visit to Saudi Arabia this week, that 70-year-old bargain looks frayed by fractious relations with a ruling House of Saud that is coming under unpredictable new management. The shale-based energy revolution meanwhile shows the potential to liberate the US from dependence on Saudi and Gulf oil. Mr Obama’s main foreign policy achievement, the nuclear deal struck last year between international powers and Iran, is abhorrent to Saudi Arabia, whose virulently sectarian Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam abominates the Shia Islam of Iran and its Arab network of co-religionists from Baghdad to Beirut.
在美國總統巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)對沙特阿拉伯展開卸任前的最後一次訪問之際，美國與如今由不可預測的新掌門人執掌的沙特王室的緊張關係，讓這一持續70年的協議出現裂痕。與此同時，基於頁岩的能源革命顯示出美國有能力擺脫對沙特和海灣國家石油的依賴。奧巴馬的主要外交政策成就是國際大國與伊朗去年達成的核協議，而這爲沙特阿拉伯所憎恨，該國瓦哈比(Wahhabi)教派對遜尼派伊斯蘭教作出排他的宗派解釋，對伊朗的什葉派伊斯蘭以及遍佈阿拉伯世界（從伊拉克到黎巴嫩）的什葉派網絡充滿憎恨。
Even when the Iran deal was only at an interim and fragile stage in 2013, the Saudis were so affronted they rejected a seat for which they had vigorously lobbied on the UN Security Council. But differences between Washington and Riyadh had been steadily accumulating — starting with the fact that it was mainly Saudi terrorists, on orders of the Saudi Osama bin Laden, who struck America on 9/11.
甚至在2013年伊朗核協議僅僅處於脆弱的臨時階段時，沙特阿拉伯就感覺深受冒犯，拒絕了該國此前大力爭取的聯合國安理會(UN Security Council)非常任理事國席位。但美國與沙特的分歧早就在逐步積累，這始於下列事實：2001年9月11日襲擊美國的恐怖分子主要是沙特人，他們的頭目奧薩馬•本•拉登(Osama bin Laden)也是沙特人。
The Saudis could never reconcile themselves to the US-led invasion of Iraq, not because it toppled Saddam Hussein but because it led to Shia majority rule in an Arab country. When Hosni Mubarak was toppled by Egypt’s popular revolt in 2011, Riyadh accused Mr Obama of betraying a US ally. Saudi perceptions of US complacency in the face of Iran’s advances in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are a grievance far outweighing western perceptions of Isis jihadism as the main threat in and from the Middle East. After the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to a lightning Isis offensive in 2014, even the late Prince Saud al-Faisal, the respected Saudi foreign minister, remonstrated with John Kerry, US secretary of state, that “Daesh [Isis] is our [Sunni] response to your support for the Da’wa” — the Tehran-aligned Shia Islamist ruling party of Iraq.
沙特阿拉伯永遠不能忍受以美國爲首的多國部隊對伊拉克的入侵，不是因爲這場入侵推翻了薩達姆•侯賽因(Saddam Hussein)，而是因爲它導致占人口大多數的什葉派統治了一個阿拉伯國家。2011年，當埃及的民衆抗議推翻胡斯尼•穆巴拉克(Hosni Mubarak)政權時，沙特阿拉伯譴責奧巴馬背叛了美國的一個盟友。沙特阿拉伯認爲美國在面對伊朗在伊拉克、敘利亞、黎巴嫩和也門的步步緊逼時無動於衷，由此產生的怨恨遠遠超過西方將“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)的聖戰主義視爲中東內部以及來自中東的主要威脅。在2014年ISIS的閃電攻勢導致伊拉克城市摩蘇爾淪陷後，就連備受尊敬的沙特外長、已故的沙特•費薩爾親王(Prince Saud Al-Faisal)也對美國國務卿約翰•克里(John Kerry)抱怨說：“ISIS是我們（遜尼派）對你們支持Da’wa（與德黑蘭一鼻孔出氣的伊拉克什葉派伊斯蘭主義執政黨）的迴應”。
Mr Obama’s never-enthusiastic sentiments about the US-Saudi alliance, meanwhile, have become clearer after The Atlantic magazine published his candid thoughts last month. Obviously he sees Wahhabism as an ideology that fuels Islamist extremism worldwide and as a barrier blocking the Arab rendezvous with modernity.
與此同時，奧巴馬從未對美國沙特同盟表現出熱情，在《大西洋》雜誌(The Atlantic)上月發表他的坦率看法後，這一點變得更爲清楚了。顯然，他把瓦哈比主義視爲一種助燃全球伊斯蘭極端主義的意識形態，以及一個阻礙阿拉伯世界現代化的障礙。
Alongside the international rapprochement with Iran, Mr Obama has long argued for a regional thaw and self-regulating balance of power between the Saudi and Iranian rivals. “The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians — which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen — requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood and institute some sort of cold peace,” he told The Atlantic.
在國際社會與伊朗關係和解的同時，奧巴馬長期主張地區關係走向緩和，在沙特阿拉伯和伊朗的對手之間實現自我調整的實力平衡。他告訴《大西洋》雜誌：“沙特阿拉伯與伊朗的競爭（這幫助造成了敘利亞、伊拉克和也門的代理人戰爭和混亂）要求我們對我們的朋友以及伊朗人說，他們需要找到一種有效方式共享這個地區，建立起某種冷和平。”
But any such regional détente remains anathema to Saudi Arabia, in which real power is now wielded by Mohammed bin Salman, deputy crown prince and 30-year-old son of the ageing King Salman — the first time the reins have passed from the sons of Ibn Saud to the third generation.
但任何地區關係的緩和都是沙特阿拉伯所憎恨的，如今沙特的實權由該國副王儲、年邁的沙特國王薩勒曼(King Salman)的30歲兒子穆罕默德•本•薩勒曼(Mohammed bin Salman，見上圖)掌握，這是大權首次由伊本•沙特的兒子們傳到第三代。
The fiasco at last weekend’s oil summit in Qatar, when on Mohammed bin Salman’s instructions the Saudis tore up a production freeze deal they had largely devised because an Iran emerging from sanctions refused to be part of it, demonstrated beyond doubt that the kingdom’s visceral animosity towards its Shia rival trumps economic self-interest.
在上週末的卡塔爾石油峯會上，遵照穆罕默德•本•薩勒曼的命令，沙特阿拉伯撕毀了本已基本定稿的產量凍結協議，就因爲剛剛解除制裁的伊朗拒絕參與。這一尷尬結局清楚地表明，沙特阿拉伯對什葉派對手的刻骨仇恨高於經濟利益。
However fulsome and emollient Mr Obama manages to be on this visit, and however much he summons up the bonds uniting the US and the Wahhabi kingdom, all the way back to Roosevelt and Ibn Saud, the Saudis are simply waiting for him to leave office — albeit as anxious as anyone about the bewildering contest to replace him.
不管奧巴馬在訪問期間表現出多麼恭維和圓滑，不管他在多大程度上重提美國與這個瓦哈比王國之間源遠流長、可一路追溯到羅斯福與伊本•沙特的傳統紐帶，沙特方面只是在等着他下臺。當然，他們對於這場令人困惑的美國總統大選與所有人一樣焦慮。
“I don’t think there can be any confusion about who is our partner in the region and who is not,” said Rob Malley, the president’s adviser on the Gulf. “It’s clear who our allies and who our partners are.” Not to the Saudis, it isn’t, and perhaps not so much to the Americans either.
“我認爲，我們不可能混淆誰是我們在這個地區的合作伙伴，誰不是，”奧巴馬的海灣事務顧問羅布•馬利(Rob Malley)表示，“很清楚，誰是我們的盟友，誰是我們的合作伙伴。”對沙特阿拉伯來說，這一點並不清楚，或許對美國也沒那麼清楚。
