"ISIS潰敗說"的論調不要言之過早
News that the US is sending 560 more troops to Iraq as part of the push to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Isis is being seen as further evidence the jihadis are on the run. Surveys that show Isis has lost 12 per cent of its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq so far this year, after a shrinkage of 14 per cent in 2015, feed into this narrative. So, too, in its grim way, does the spate of terror attacks with which Isis has marked Ramadan, from Baghdad to Bangladesh, and Medina to Istanbul.
據稱，美國將向伊拉克增派560名軍人，力圖從“伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)手中奪回伊拉克北部城市摩蘇爾。該消息被視爲聖戰分子正在潰敗的進一步證據。與ISIS潰敗說相吻合的是，有調查稱，今年迄今，ISIS在敘利亞和伊拉克自封的哈里發國已經丟掉了12%的地盤（2015年丟掉了14%）。同樣與ISIS潰敗說相吻合的是，它以其殘忍的方式接連在世界各地——從巴格達到孟加拉國，從麥地那到伊斯坦布爾——發動恐怖襲擊，以慶祝齋月(Ramadan)。
Some interpret this proliferation of atrocity – the attacks at a Shia market in Baghdad that killed almost 300 and at Istanbul’s Ataturk international airport, where 45 died, were especially savage – as an index of jihadi failure as Isis territory contracts.
有人將這種暴行的擴大（尤爲兇殘的是，巴格達一處什葉派市場發生的襲擊導致近300人死亡；伊斯坦布爾的阿塔圖爾克國際機場發生的襲擊導致45人死亡）解讀爲，伴隨ISIS所佔地盤的收縮，聖戰分子潰敗前在瘋狂反撲。
This seems overly reductive. Isis has always launched far-flung attacks and switched between, as well as combined, regular and irregular warfare. If they held more territory, and their momentum had not been arrested, there might actually be more such attacks.
這樣想似乎過於簡單化。ISIS一直都在很廣的範圍內發動襲擊，在常規與非常戰之間切換自如，或是將兩者相結合。如果他們佔據更多地盤，其勢頭未得到遏制的話，實際上，此類襲擊有可能更多。
The scale of this Sunni caliphate’s ambition should have become clear from the Isis assault on Paris last November — it aims to intensify the war at home and abroad, advancing and retreating according to need. The attacks on Paris, Brussels, Istanbul and elsewhere are diversions. But they are also provocations intended to lure more western “crusaders” and Shia “idolaters” into the killing fields of Syria and Iraq.
從ISIS去年11月對巴黎的襲擊中，應該能看清這個遜尼派哈里發國的野心。該組織的目標是加劇國內外的戰事，並根據需要選擇進攻或撤退。對巴黎、布魯塞爾、伊斯坦布爾及其他地區的襲擊只是“副業”。他們還試圖通過這些襲擊進行挑釁，以期吸引更多的西方“十字軍”及什葉派“偶像崇拜者”來到敘利亞和伊拉克的殺戮場。
Isis’s core calculation is threefold: that however much territory they lose, they will still be swimming in a sea of alienated Sunni inside the shell states they infest such as Iraq and Syria; that Iran and its Arab allies — such as Lebanon’s Hizbollah, Bashar-al-Assad’s Syria or the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad — will continue to supply them with an alibi for their jihad; and that neighbouring states such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Sunni powers also ranged against Iran’s Shia Arab axis, are vulnerable to their reach and their message.
ISIS的核心盤算有三層：第一，無論失去多少地盤，他們仍可以寄居在伊拉克、敘利亞等“空殼”國家中，這些國家中有大量被疏遠的遜尼派，爲他們提供了自由的生存空間；第二，伊朗及其阿拉伯盟友——如黎巴嫩真主黨(Hizbollah)、巴沙爾•阿薩德(Bashar-al-Assad)的敘利亞或者什葉派主導的伊拉克政府——將繼續爲他們進行聖戰提供理由；第三，他們也很容易把自己的影響力和宣傳擴大到土耳其、沙特等同樣反對伊朗的什葉派阿拉伯軸心的遜尼派鄰國。
For five years Turkey had allowed Islamist rebels to use its territory as a launchpad to attack the Assad regime in Syria, during which Isis implanted lethal cells. Yet Turkey’s overwhelming priority has been to stop its Kurdish minority from linking up with Syrian Kurds, who are consolidating self-governing territory just across the border, akin to Kurdish home rule in northern Iraq. Until now, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s neo-Islamist president, has treated Isis as a secondary issue, painting it as part of a western-inspired conspiracy to do him and his country down.
五年來，土耳其一直允許伊斯蘭主義叛軍使用其領土作爲基地，攻擊敘利亞的阿薩德政權。在此期間，ISIS紮下了致命的根基。但土耳其重中之重的首要任務，一直是要阻止本國的庫爾德人少數派與敘利亞的庫爾德人聯合起來，後者正在土敘邊境鞏固自己的自治區域（其自治類似於伊拉克北部庫爾德人實現的自治）。直至現在，土耳其信奉新伊斯蘭主義的總統雷傑普•塔伊普•埃爾多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)一直未將ISIS作爲頭等大事對待，他還將ISIS描繪成西方主導的陰謀的一部分，目的是讓他下臺，讓土耳其衰落。
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is overwhelmingly concerned to halt what it sees as Iran’s predatory advance through Arab lands, and finds itself in uncomfortable competition with Isis as to which of them is a more credible scourge of the Shia.
與此同時，沙特更關心的是要阻止它眼中在阿拉伯人土地上橫行的伊朗，並且它發現自己陷入了一場尷尬的競爭，即與ISIS相比，誰是打擊什葉派更可靠的人選。
More important than calculations of whether territorial shrinkage prompts terrorist offensives, therefore, is to search for ways of immunising a susceptible Sunni minority against jihadi contagion. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 replaced a Sunni minority regime with a Shia-dominated one. While calling for the downfall of the Assad regime from 2011, the west declined to back Sunni majority rebels in Syria. From what it painted as a betrayal, Isis fashioned the fanciful idea that Sunni worldwide — about 1.3bn of 1.6bn Muslims — are a victimised minority it alone can defend.
因此，比起思考是不是地盤縮小激起了恐怖襲擊，更重要的是要想方設法讓伊拉克和敘利亞兩國境內的遜尼少數派免受聖戰思想的侵襲。美國2003年領導的入侵伊拉克的戰爭終結了遜尼少數派的統治，取而代之的是什葉派主導的政權；雖然西方自2011年起就呼籲阿薩德政權下臺，但拒絕支持敘利亞的遜尼少數派叛軍。ISIS將這描繪成一種背叛，由此製造出這一荒謬的概念：即全世界遜尼派穆斯林（在16億穆斯林中有13億都是遜尼派）是受迫害的少數羣體，而ISIS可以獨自保護這一羣體。
How to counter this? So long as the Assads remain in place in Syria, supported by Russia and Iran, striking civilian targets with impunity and unmolested by the US-led coalition fighting Isis in Iraq and Syria, the task looks impossible. American reliance on Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish fighters on the ground, and the US-backed Iraqi government’s dependence on Iranian-trained Shia militias, greatly help Isis to posture as the shield of the Sunni Arabs.
如何反擊ISIS製造的這一概念？只要阿薩德家族在俄羅斯及伊朗的支持下仍然在敘利亞掌權，打擊平民目標而不受懲罰，而且美國領導的在伊拉克和敘利亞打擊ISIS的聯軍對此也不加干預，那麼，反擊這一概念的任務看起來就不可能完成。美國對於地面上敘利亞和伊拉克庫爾德武裝分子的依賴、以及美國支持的伊拉克政府對伊朗培訓的什葉派民兵的依賴，對ISIS展示其作爲遜尼派阿拉伯人守護者的形象極爲有利。
It is hard to see any of this changing without real collaboration between the US and Russia, with each reining back their local allies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on the one hand and Iran on the other, and pushing them towards regional detente. Governance solutions must be explored simultaneously with this. Confederalism, offering secure local power to all communities under the umbrella of a loose national compact sharing some power and resources, looks the only way forward.
如果沒有美國與俄羅斯之間的真正協作，各自控制住自己的地區盟友（一邊是沙特阿拉伯和土耳其，另一邊是伊朗）並推動它們走向區域和解，當前的局勢將很難出現任何變化。與此同時，必須探索治理方面的解決方案。邦聯制——在一個分享部分權力與資源的鬆散全國性契約下向所有社羣提供有保障的地方權力——看來是唯一出路。
Few but the region’s stateless Kurds have given much thought to this. As things stand, therefore, talk of federalism is at best dismissed as a zero-sum game, and more usually as a foreign plot to break up unitary states. But Syria and Iraq are already broken.
該地區沒有獨立國家的庫爾德人大多沒有認真考慮過這個方案。因此，在目前的情況下，談論聯邦制度充其量不過被斥爲一場零和遊戲，在更多時候則會被看作旨在分裂單一制國家的外國陰謀。但敘利亞、伊拉克本已四分五裂。
Until discussions on their future draw in the Sunni and the Shia, as well as other groups such as Syria’s Alawites, there are going to be more broken states and no way to put them back together again.
在遜尼派與什葉派（以及像敘利亞的阿拉維派等羣體）參與到關於自身未來的談判中來之前，更多國家會陷入分裂，無法重歸統一。
