[2008.11.29] 伊拉克：情况真的正在变好吗？

Iraq
伊拉克

Is it really coming right?
情况真的正在变好吗？

Nov 27th 2008 | BAGHDAD, ERBIL AND MOSUL
From The Economist print edition

In most of Iraq, violence has plummeted and the Americans under a new president look set gradually to withdraw. But will the battered country hold together?
在伊拉克的绝大多数地方，暴力活动已经快速下降，而美国人在新总统治下看起来慢慢地准备撤军。但是这个山河破碎的国家会走到一起来吗？

IT SHOULD be momentous. In Baghdad in the middle of this week, after fierce debate and protests on the streets, Iraq’s fractious parliament at last voted to approve a withdrawal agreement with the United States, under which all American troops will leave the country by the end of 2011. And yet the mood of this exhausted country is far from jubilant.

这件事应该意义重大。本周在巴格达，经过激烈的辩论和街头抗议，易怒的伊拉克议会最终投票通过了与美国签订的一份撤军协议，协议规定所有的美国军队将于2011年年底之前离开这个国家。然而这个精疲力尽的国家其心情远谈不上高兴。

In Mosul, 320km (200 miles) north of Baghdad up the Tigris river, the governor of Nineveh province, Doraid Kashmoula, furrows his brow, fiddles with his worry-beads in one hand, stubs out yet another cigarette with the other and reels off a litany of woe in his dankly curtained office. The scion of a prominent Sunni Arab family, he took the job two years ago after his predecessor, his cousin, was assassinated.

在摩苏尔–位于巴格达以北320公里（200英里）的底格里斯河上–他的阴暗潮湿、挂着窗帘的办公室里，尼尼微省省长Doraid Kashmoula眉头紧皱，一手拨弄着他的念珠，另一只手用力掐灭又一根香烟，然后发出一长串悲叹。作为一个逊尼派阿拉伯名门望族的子孙，两年前在其前任–他堂兄–被刺杀之后，他干上了这份差事。

Since then he has survived half a dozen murder attempts. His son, a brother and four cousins have been killed by insurgents. His house has been burnt down. He is protected both by the Kurdish guerrillas, who control the eastern half of the city and a clutch of fortified government buildings in the western half, and by the Iraqi army and police, with American forces at their shoulder, when he ventures farther afield.

自那以后他躲过了六次谋杀企图。他的儿子、一个兄弟和四个堂兄弟被叛乱份子杀害。他的家被付之一炬。他被库尔德游击队和伊拉克军队及警察所保护。前者控制着这个城市的东部，以及西部一些加强了军事戒备的政府建筑物，后者则有美国军队的支持，在他到更远的地方冒险时保护他。

“Security is slowly getting better,” he says, without much conviction. At present the insurgents carry out about ten attacks a day in his province, including car bombs and ambushes, mostly in the vicinity of Mosul. In each of the past four months, more than 100 civilians and about a score of army and police have been killed, according to official figures.

“安全问题正在慢慢好转。”他说，但语气并不太肯定。现在反叛份子在他的省里每天进行大概十次攻击，包括汽车炸弹和伏击，绝大多数在摩苏尔附近。根据官方的数字，过去四个月里，每月有100多位平民和大约20来位军人及警察被杀。

The provincial council’s chairman, another Sunni Arab, tells a similar tale. From a drawer in his desk he takes a sheet of paper displaying 12 coloured photographs of “martyrs”: four brothers and eight cousins, all murdered because of their kinship to himself. A councillor representing the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), a long-established Sunni outfit which heads the main Sunni block in the national parliament and is led by one of the country’s two vice-presidents, Tariq al-Hashemi, says that 420 of his party members in Mosul have been killed in the past two years. Nineveh’s deputy governor, a Kurd, says that 1,600 of his people in Mosul have died at the hands of insurgents since the American invasion-as have “many more Arabs”.

该省议会主席，另一位逊尼派阿拉伯人，讲了一个类似的故事。他从自己桌子的抽屉里拿出一张纸，上面展示了12位”烈士”的彩色照片：四个兄弟，八位堂兄弟，都因为跟自己有亲属关系而被谋杀了。一位议员，他代表伊拉克伊斯兰党（IIP）（一个成立已久的逊尼派政党，由该国的两位副总统之一Tariq al-Hashemi领导），他说过去两年自己政党内有420名摩苏尔成员被杀害。尼尼微副省长，一名库尔德人，说自从美国人入侵，他自己在摩苏尔的人民有1600名死在叛乱分子手中–而”阿拉伯人则更多”。

Nobody knows how many insurgents operate in the area. Maybe 5,000, says the council chairman, describing a spectrum from al-Qaeda fanatics to secular Baathists. “Plus a million supporters,” he adds, with a mirthless laugh. As the Americans and their Iraqi army allies successfully hunt them down elsewhere in Iraq, many have gravitated to Mosul. It is close to Syria, from which foreign jihadists still infiltrate. The city has a history of Baathist loyalty to Saddam Hussein and hostility to the Shias, who count for barely 5% of its people.

没人知道这一地区有多少叛乱分子在活动。那位议会主席说可能有5000，从基地组织的狂热信徒到世俗的社会党人，各种各样。”再加上一百万支持者，”他阴郁地笑了笑，补上一句。当美国人和其伊拉克军事盟友在伊拉克的其它地方成功追捕他们时，许多人逃到了摩苏尔。这儿离叙利亚很近，国外的圣战战士仍在从那里渗透进来。这个城市拥有着社会党人忠诚于萨达姆•侯赛因以及仇视什叶派（它仅占该城人口的5%）的历史。

Iraq’s multiple fault-lines are especially visible-and occasionally bloody-in Nineveh and Mosul. Some towns in the province have a record of Shia-Sunni enmity. Nineveh has Iraq’s largest minority of Christians, themselves divided into various sects, some speaking Aramaic, the language of Christ. In a northern arc dwell the Yazidis, more than 500,000-strong they claim, who follow an ancient religion that reveres a Peacock Angel; many Muslims damn them as devil-worshippers. Then there are the Shabaks, who claim descent from Persians and follow various brands of religion, including Islam. There are also the Turkomens, stay-behinds from the days when Mosul was the capital of one of the three Ottoman vilayets (administrative regions) that were crudely lumped together to form Iraq when the Turkish empire collapsed after the first world war.

伊拉克的多重分裂在尼尼微与摩苏尔尤其明显–偶尔也很血腥。该省的一些城镇拥有什叶派-逊尼派相互仇恨的记录。尼尼微有伊拉克最大的基督徒少数族群，他们分裂成不同的派别，有的讲阿拉姆语（Aramaic）–基督的语言。在北方的弧形地带居住着Yazidis，他们声称超过50万人，信仰一种古老的宗教，崇拜一位孔雀天使；许多穆斯林骂他们是恶魔崇拜者。然后是Shabaks，自称是波斯人的后裔，信奉各种各样的宗教，包括伊斯兰教。还有土库曼人，他们是奥斯曼帝国的遗物，当时摩苏尔还是三个奥斯曼帝国vilayets（行政区）其中一个的首府，第一次世界大战之后，当土耳其帝国瓦解，这三个行政区被大致揉到一起形成了伊拉克。

Perhaps the biggest and currently the scratchiest division is between Arabs and Kurds, who control most of the east and north of Nineveh, and account for about one-third of its population. Most of the Sunni Arabs, the province’s largest group, boycotted the last elections in 2005, so the Kurds ended up with a disproportionately large chunk of the provincial government (31 out of 41 seats in the council) and hold sway over the hapless Mr Kashmoula and the council chairman, whom the insurgents curse as puppets and traitors.

也许是最大的以及现在最刺耳的分裂存在于阿拉伯人和库尔德人之间。库尔德人控制着尼尼微东部和北部绝大部分地区，占据着这些地区人口的大约三分之一。大多数逊尼派阿拉伯人，该省最大的族群，抵制了2005年最后一次选举，因此库尔德人最后在该省政府获得了与其人口比例不相称的大量席位（在议会的41席中占有31席），并操控倒霉的Kashmoula先生及议会主席–反叛份子称他们为傀儡和叛徒。

But this may soon change dramatically because the Sunnis are set to contest provincial elections due on January 31st, when they may well oust the Kurds from local power. To minimise their expected losses, the Kurds are bent on ensuring that all the non-Sunni minorities, such as the Christians, Yazidis and Shabaks, vote for a Kurdish-led list of candidates.

但这种情况可能很快就能得到极大改观，因为逊尼派将会参加于1月31日举行的省级竞选，到时候他们很可能将库尔德人从当地政权中驱赶出去。为了将他们的预期损失减到最低，库尔德人决定确保所有的非逊尼派少数族群，例如基督徒、Yazidis和Shabaks，为库尔德人的候选名单投票。

Many people from these small minorities, together perhaps more than a tenth of the province’s people, say that the Kurds, who control the territory where most of them live, are trying to intimidate them into voting their way. The Kurds, they say, are even attempting to frighten them into fleeing east into areas more firmly controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) from its headquarters in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

许多来自这些小族群的人（加起来可能超过该省人口的十分之一）说库尔德人–他们控制着这些人居住的绝大部分地区–正试图威胁他们按照自己的意愿投票。他们说库尔德人甚至想用恐吓手段迫使他们往东逃，进入库尔德民主党（KDP）–其总部位于库尔德地区政府首府Erbil–控制更稳固的地区。

In Sinjar, west of Mosul, some Yazidis, who predominate there, say the Kurds want to force them to vote for the Kurdish list. Not only would that mean increasing the Kurds’ chances of holding on to the provincial council. It would also strengthen their case to have such places as Sinjar, which are technically part of Nineveh, eventually transferred formally to Iraq’s Kurdistan region, whose area the Kurds seek to widen as much as possible.

在Sinjar，摩苏尔以西，一些Yazidis人，他们在那儿占据人口多数，说库尔德人想强迫他们为库尔德候选名单投票。那将不仅仅意味着库尔德人留在省议会的机会增加。它也将增强他们将Sinjar这样的地方–技术上说它是尼尼微的一部分–最终正式转变成伊拉克的库尔德人地区（库尔德人尽可能地设法扩大该地区）的理由。

The Christians have been hammered, in Nineveh as in the rest of Iraq: their numbers throughout the country are said to be down from 800,000 in 2003 to around 250,000 today. Earlier this year the archbishop of the ancient Chaldean church was abducted in Mosul and murdered. In October, some 10,000 Christians fled into Kurdish-held areas from close to Mosul after a dozen of them had been killed. No one is certain who the culprits were.

在尼尼微和伊拉克的其它地方，基督徒们都被打击：他们的全国人数据说从2003年的80万减少到了今天的25万左右。今年早些时候，古老的Chaldean教堂的大主教在摩苏尔被绑架并杀害。没人能确定谁是凶手。

In any event, tension is rising across the ethno-sectarian board: between Kurds and Arabs; between Sunnis who have co-operated with government and the larger number who have not; between Kurds and minorities; and within the minorities themselves. “If we [Christians] had guns we’d kill each other too,” says a prominent Chaldean Christian. “If Mosul was peaceful, we’d want to stay in Nineveh,” says a leading Christian businessman in the town of Bartulla, just east of Mosul. “But if it isn’t, we’d like to be part of Kurdistan.”

无论如何，紧张状态正在上升并超越种族-世俗的界限：库尔德人与阿拉伯人；与政府合作的逊尼派与人数更多的不与政府合作的逊尼派；库尔德人与少数族群；以及少数族群内部之间。”如果我们（基督徒）有枪我们也会自相残杀，”一位知名的Chaldean基督徒说。”如果摩苏尔平静，我们将想呆在尼尼微，”Bartulla镇（就在摩苏尔西边）一位重要的基督徒商人这样说。”如果不是这样，我们就想成为库尔德人的一部分。”

But there is a gleam of hope that in Nineveh, as elsewhere in Iraq, the coming provincial elections may shift the dynamic of Iraqi politics, pave the way for more genuinely representative government and make it harder for the insurgents to hold the loyalty of the disgruntled. The key is that, unlike last time, the Sunni Arabs are expected to vote en masse. If Nineveh’s council took on a Sunni nationalist hue, the insurgents might be in trouble.

但还有一线希望：在尼尼微，就像伊拉克其它地方，即将到来的省大选可能会改变伊拉克的政治格局，为更具代表性的政府铺平道路，并使反叛分子更难保持不满者的忠诚。关键是，不像上次，预计逊尼派阿拉伯人这次将一起投票。如果尼尼微议会带上了逊尼派民族主义色彩，那反叛分子可能就有麻烦了。

Shaking the political kaleidoscope
政治万花筒

Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Shia prime minister, is said to be reaching out to Sunni politicians, military men and tribal leaders in the hope of widening his narrow base in the Islamic Dawa party. But Iraq is entering an even more frenetic political phase than usual. The provincial elections should point, for the first time in three years, to whom the Iraqis want to run their country.

努里•马利基，伊拉克的什叶派总理，据说正与逊尼派政治家、军人和部族领导人接触，希望能扩大他在伊斯兰召唤党内的狭窄基础。但是伊拉克正在进入一个更狂热的政治时期。三年来头一次，省级选举将指出伊拉克人想要谁来治理他们的国家。

The poll will also serve as a dry run for a general election due at the end of next year. Moreover, under the tutelage of an energetic UN team in Baghdad, the system for the provincial elections provides for open lists, whereas last time they were closed. This time parties will win representation on a proportional basis in each of the 18 provinces (bar the three Kurdish ones and the disputed Kirkuk province, where elections will not take place), but voters will also be able to mark their order of preference for individual candidates on their chosen party list. Some 400-plus parties have been registered, more than 150 in Baghdad alone, with more than 14,600 candidates and 36-odd coalitions.

这次选举也将成为明年年底全国大选的预演。而且，在积极的联合国巴格达小组的指导下，省级选举规定开放候选人名单，而上一次是封闭的。这一次各政党将在 18个省里按比例赢得代表席位（3个库尔德人省份以及纷争不断的基尔库克省将排除在外，不举行选举），但是选民也能够在其所选择的党派候选人名单上标明对单个候选人的喜好次序。有大约400多个政党已经登记，在巴格达一个地区就超过150个，以及14600多名候选人和36个联盟。

The main shift will be towards much stronger representation for Sunni Arabs, who have been sorely under-represented since Saddam’s demise. A battle is brewing between the established Sunni parties and an array of groups emerging out of the tribal councils that have played so crucial a part in beating back the insurgency, including al-Qaeda, especially in the western province of Anbar and along the Euphrates valley north-west of Baghdad.

主要改变将会是逊尼派阿拉伯人获得比之前强得多的代表权，他们在萨达姆倒台之后代表人数极度不足。一场争斗正在酝酿：已经成立的逊尼派政党和从部族议会中出现的大量组织。这些部族议会在抗击包括基地组织在内的反叛分子时扮演了关键角色，尤其是在Anbar省西部和巴格达以西以北的幼发拉底河流域。

A fight for supremacy within the new Shia establishment has also begun. A striking development is the emergence of Mr Maliki as a would-be strongman. Despite his wooden persona on the dais and on television, he has surprised everyone by his increasingly ruthless determination to tighten his grip. He was boosted by his success, earlier this year, when he personally directed the Iraqi army to sweep the Shia militias loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric, out of Iraq’s then chaotic second city, Basra. The army promptly replicated that success in the hitherto lawless Shia slums of Baghdad, known as Sadr City. Mr Maliki is also interfering with senior appointments in the armed forces: the new divisional army commander in Mosul, for instance, is said to be a brother-in-law.

在新的什叶派当权者内部，一场争夺权力的战斗也已经开始。一个引人注目的新情况是马利基先生作为一名即将成为的强势人物而出现。尽管在讲台和电视上外表呆板，他越来越坚定地巩固了自己的权力，这让所有人吃惊。今年早些时候，他个人命令伊拉克军队将忠实于Muqtada al-Sadr（一位激进牧师）的什叶派武装赶出了当时混乱不堪的伊拉克第二大城市巴士拉。之后军队以样画瓢，立即在之前一直无法无天的巴格达什叶派贫民区–叫做撒德尔城–获得了同样的胜利。马利基先生也正在干涉军队的高级官员任命：例如，摩苏尔新的军队分区司令，据说是他妻子的兄弟。

He has also gained ground, even among Sunnis, by his increasingly acerbic attitude towards the Kurds, who many Arabs think have overreached themselves in the past few years. In August he sent Iraqi army units into Khanaqin, a mainly Kurdish district that is controlled by the Kurdish authorities but falls within Diyala province. He and Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, who heads the KDP, one of two rival parties that jointly run Iraqi Kurdistan, are increasingly rude to each other. Mr Barzani is said to have recently told Mr Maliki to his face: “You smell like a dictator.”

由于对库尔德人越来越尖刻的态度–许多阿拉伯人认为他们在过去几年里做过了头–他甚至也在逊尼派中获得了支持。八月份他派伊拉克军队进入 Khanaqin，一个由库尔德当局控制却隶属于迪亚拉省，主要是库尔德人的地区。他与库尔德人地区政府总统Massoud Barzani之间的关系越来越糟了（Barzani领导着KDP，联合管理伊拉克库尔德斯坦地区的两个相互敌对的政党之一）。据说Barzani先生最近当面告诉马利基先生：”你有股独裁者的味儿。”

And he is rattling a lot of fellow Shias with his powers of patronage and purse. His own Dawa party has split, with his predecessor as prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, promoting himself as a stalking horse for the Sadrists, whose party has been barred from the lists. The other leading Shia party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by the ailing Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, is equally worried by what it sees as the prime minister’s authoritarian bent. In particular, Mr Maliki’s assorted rivals have complained about his setting up of “support councils” among various tribes, both Sunni and Shia, to help his party get out the vote-by means of bribery and intimidation, according to his detractors.

利用任免和金钱上的权力，他也正在召集许多什叶派同胞。他自己的召唤党已经分裂，前任总理Ibrahim al-Jaafari将自己推出来吸引萨德尔派的火力–萨德尔派的政党已经被禁止参选。另一个重要的什叶派政党，伊拉克伊斯兰最高委员会，由正在衰落的 Abdel Aziz al-Hakim领导，同样为这位总理的极权主义倾向感到焦虑。马利基先生的各类反对者尤其抱怨他为了帮助自己的政党在选举中获胜–他的批评者说，这通过贿赂和威胁来实现–他在不同部族里，包括逊尼派和什叶派，建立”支持委员会”。

Competition among the Sunnis is no less fierce, especially in the tribal movement known as the Sahwa (Awakening) and the Salvation Front, which are bidding to oust candidates tied to the largest Sunni block in parliament, the National Accord Front, or Tawafuq, whose leading party is the IIP. Here too Mr Maliki has been weaving controversial alliances, backing one group against another. The political emergence of the tribes, many of which had previously supported the insurgents, is part of a new dynamic that has seen al-Qaeda and other rebel groups beaten back if not completely defeated. Mr Maliki has also been accused of having hundreds of IIP members arrested, especially in the mixed-sect Diyala province.

逊尼派之间的竞争激烈程度也不逊色，尤其是叫做Sahwa（”苏醒”）的部族运动以及拯救阵线–他们正致力于驱逐与议会中最大阵营全国协议阵线（叫做 Tawafuq，领导它的政党是IIP）有关系的候选人。马利基先生也在这儿编织有争议的同盟，支持一方反对另一方。部族，许多之前曾支持反叛分子，在政治舞台上的出现，是一种新的力量，能够抗击基地组织和其它反叛组织，如果不是将其完全打败的话。

No one knows what the new electoral picture will be like. Some say that Mr Maliki’s Dawa will do badly, whatever the advantages of incumbency. The Sadrist movement, internally divided like so many others, is widely thought to have lost ground yet still commands the sympathy of hordes of poor Shias in such places as Sadr City and in the southern provinces. The tribal parties have never been tested.

没人知道新的选举形式将会怎样。一些人说马利基先生的召唤党将一败涂地，不管作为现任执政党拥有怎样的优势。萨德尔运动，就像许多其它运动一样，已经内部分裂，大家都认为它将失去支持，但仍将拥有萨德尔城这样的南方省份城市什叶派贫民的同情。部族政党则还未接受过检验。

Back to independence
回到独立

Mr Maliki will naturally take as much credit as he can from the withdrawal agreement with the Americans. He, or so it will be claimed, has nailed down the occupiers and made them promise to leave within three years. Under the agreement, American forces, now about 146,000-strong in Iraq, will withdraw from the cities by the middle of next year. All military operations will require the assent of Iraqis. Americans will be barred from using Iraq as a launch pad to attack other countries.

马利基先生自然会从与美国人签订的撤军协议中捞取尽可能多的功劳。他已经–或将这么宣称–与占领者敲定协议并使他们承诺在三年之内离开。按照协议，美国军队，现在在伊拉克大约有14600人，将于明年年中之前从城市中撤出。所有军事行动都将需要伊拉克人的同意。禁止美国人使用伊拉克作为跳板来进攻其它国家。

There is, in fact, considerable wiggle-room in the agreement. The timing can be extended by mutual consent. Even the requirement for American troops to withdraw from city centres may be open to an elastic interpretation. The Joint Security Stations, where American troops are entrenched in mini-forts scattered across the cities, have been an essential part of the military surge which, since early last year, has stanched the terrible sectarian bloodletting, especially in Baghdad. Already they are jointly manned by Americans and Iraqis. Iraq’s generals may well be loth to remove the Americans, perhaps relabelling them as “advisers”.

实际上这份协议有相当大的活动余地。双方同意的话，撤军时间可以后延。甚至连美国军队撤出城市中心的要求也可以灵活解释。联合安全站–那儿的美国军队据守在散布于各个城市的微型堡垒里–已经成为增兵计划的一个关键部分，去年上半年以来，增兵计划止住了可怕的宗派流血事件，尤其是在巴格达。这些安全站已经联合部署美国人和伊拉克人。伊拉克的将军们很可能不愿撤走美国人，而将他们标为”顾问人员”。

The Iraqi army and national police (a kind of gendarmerie) have improved out of all recognition in the past two years and at last count numbered 266,000, alongside 257,000 local police, 36,000 border guards and more than 100,000 “Sons of Iraq”, the militias formed by the mainly Sunni tribal councils. But even their best units still rely heavily on the Americans for air support, not least the helicopters that are crucial in counter-insurgency, and for other technical skills, including communications, intelligence and logistics.

过去两年里伊拉克军队和国家警察（一种宪兵）已经完全改观，最后一次统计有266000人，另外还有257000名当地警察，36000名边界卫兵和超过 100000名”伊拉克之子”，主要由逊尼派部族议会组织的军事机构。但是就是其中最好的队伍仍然极度依靠美国人的空中支持，不仅是打击叛军时非常关键的直升机，还有其它技能，包括通讯，情报和后勤。

Despite the continuing horrors in Nineveh, bitter fighting in parts of Diyala, rising tension between Arabs and Kurds, and a continuing if less frequent cycle of bombs in Baghdad, the violence overall has greatly subsided from its level of two years ago. In the second half of 2006, violent civilian deaths, mostly in Baghdad, amounted to around 20,000, counted in morgues and hospitals. The latest estimates put the monthly figure at under 500 a month, still a shocking number, but an eighth of what it was. Fewer than 50 Iraqi soldiers and police were killed in October compared with 300-plus in April last year. The American military death toll has dived from 126 in May last year to 14 last month; the total since the invasion in 2003 is nearing 4,200.

尽管尼尼微的恐惧在持续，尽管迪亚拉部分地区的战斗仍很激烈，尽管阿拉伯人和库尔德人之间的紧张关系正在加剧，以及巴格达持续的（频率可能变低了的）连环爆炸，其总体暴力活动已经从2年前的水平上极大地下降了。2006年下半年，死于暴力的平民人数，主要在巴格达，经过停尸房和医院统计，达到20000。最近一次统计，月死亡人数降到每月500人以下，虽然仍很惊人，但只是前者的八分之一。10月份伊拉克士兵和警察的死亡人数少于50人，相比之下去年4月份的数字是300多。美国军队的死亡人数已从去年5月的126降到了最近一个月的14；2003年入侵以来总的死亡人数将近4200。

But 20,000 out of Iraq’s 34,000 doctors have left (after 2,000 were murdered) and few of the 2m-plus Iraqis now living abroad (many of them middle-class professionals) are yet willing to return. In the past few weeks, suicide-bombers have killed people at the checkpoints into Baghdad’s international zone, on the road to the airport, by one of the main bridges and outside the Ministry of Trade, where eight female employees were killed. The country still offers nothing approaching a secure environment where foreigners can come and do business. A number of foreign companies, especially in the oil sector, have signed big deals. But no major foreign banks or businesses have thought it feasible to set up shop in the open in Baghdad. Though safer than it was, Baghdad is still the most dangerous capital in the world.

但是伊拉克的34000名博士中有20000名已经离开（在2000名被谋杀之后），而现在住在国外的200多万伊拉克人（其中许多是中产阶层的专业人士）很少有人愿意回来。过去几周里，自杀性炸弹袭击已经在进入巴格达国际区域的检查站内、在通往机场的道路上、在一座主要桥梁的旁边以及贸易部外面导致有人死亡（在贸易部外有8名女雇员被杀）。这个国家仍然无法提供一个安全的环境，使得外国人能够来这里做生意。一些外国公司，尤其是在石油领域，已经签订了一些大订单。但是主要的外国银行或公司都不认为现在适宜在巴格达的露天里开店子。尽管比以前更安全，巴格达仍然是世界上最危险的首都。

In any event, as the recently departed American mastermind of the surge, General David Petraeus, repeatedly said, the gains remain “fragile and reversible”. The coming elections at the beginning and end of next year will give a vivid picture of Iraq’s political balance of power. But a potentially devastating lack of consensus among the main political groups and their leaders still prevails. Corruption is rife. Many ministries are still fiefs of patronage. Family and tribal ties are what count in getting jobs. Intrigue and deceit seem to dog the management of just about every political party. No culture of tolerance or pluralism has yet emerged.

不管怎样，就如最近离开的增兵计划策划人美军司令David Petraeus反复重申的那样，这些成果仍然”脆弱而且可逆”。明年年初和年底即将到来的选举将生动地描画出伊拉克政治力量的均衡图谱。但伊拉克的主要政治派别及其领导人之间通常缺乏共识，这具有潜在的毁灭性。腐败盛行。许多部委仍是封官许愿的采邑。找工作的过程中，仍然是家庭和部族关系说了算。阴谋与欺骗看来尾随着几乎每一个政党的管理。容忍和多元主义的文化仍未出现。

A fundamental three-way split still prevents Iraq from coming together as a country. Though it is hopeful that the Sunni Arabs, probably some 20% of the population, seem set to be drawn back into the heart of parliamentary and provincial politics next year, few of their leaders seem willing yet to acknowledge that they have lost the power that they had always held.

根本上的三向分裂仍然阻止着伊拉克像一个国家那样走到一起来。尽管存在这样的希望：逊尼派阿拉伯人，可能占据总人口的大约20%，看来明年将被拉回到议会和省级政治的中心，他们的领导人看来也很少有人愿意承认他们已经失去了他们一直拥有的权力。

A former deputy prime minister, a Sunni, insisted last week that his fellow Sunnis represent “at least 50% of Iraqis, by God!” Some of the leading Shias, who by most calculations represent more than 50% of the total population, seem prepared to reach out to the Sunnis, especially the biddable tribal sheikhs, provided they accept their new position as second fiddlers. But most Shias still regard the Sunnis with suspicion. “Maliki’s worst nightmare is still waking up to find a Sunni general in charge of the country again,” says a seasoned Western observer in Baghdad.

一位逊尼派前副总理，上个礼拜坚持说他的逊尼派同胞代表了”至少50%的伊拉克人，凭上帝起誓！”一些主要的什叶派，大多数统计标表明他们代表了总人口的 50%多，看来准备与逊尼派接触，尤其是顺从的部族族长们，如果他们愿意接受二把手的位置。但是大多数什叶派仍然对逊尼派怀有疑心。巴格达一位经验丰富的西方观察家说：”马利基最坏的噩梦仍然是醒来一看发现一位逊尼派将军再次掌管了他的国家。”

No national harmony yet
全民和谐仍未到来

The Kurds are enjoying a golden age of near-independence that they have never had before. Their region still feels the perkiest and safest in Iraq, though its leaders have yet to acquire truly democratic instincts. But the Kurds remain loth to make the sort of compromise over the bitterly disputed mixed Arab-Kurdish-Turkomen city of Kirkuk and the surrounding province which might in turn allow them to have more say over the oil in the area they control. Both Shia and Sunni Arabs habitually refer to the Kurds with ill-disguised contempt. American and UN diplomats fear that the Kurdish leaders, wary of being outflanked by each other on such issues as Kirkuk, are in danger of overplaying their hand-at a risk of losing much that they have already achieved.

库尔德人正享受着他们之前从未拥有过的近乎独立的黄金时代。在伊拉克，他们的地区仍然是感觉最快活、最安全的，尽管其领导人仍未获得真正的民主本能。但这些库尔德人仍不愿意在争议异常激烈的阿拉伯人-库尔德人-土库曼人混居的基尔库克城及其周边省份这类问题上妥协，如果他们妥协，作为回报，将允许他们在其控制地区内的石油问题上有更多发言权。什叶派和逊尼派阿拉伯人在谈到库尔德人时习惯性地表现出掩饰不住的轻蔑。美国人和联合国外交官担心库尔德人的领导者，由于害怕在基尔库克这类问题上被相互包抄，而过高估计自己的作用–从而失去他们已经得到的许多东西。

In short, the new establishment of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds sorely needs to build a sense of nationhood. The withdrawal agreement means that it will soon be for the Iraqis alone to define their destiny. For the next few years the Americans may yet find themselves holding the ring. But once the occupiers have left, the chances that the Iraqis will entrench and cherish a stable, federal, pluralist democracy must still be rated at less than even.

简言之，什叶派、逊尼派和库尔德人的新当权派非常需要建立一种国家观念。这份撤军协议意味着伊拉克人很快将要独自去诠释自己的命运。接下去的几年中，美国人可能会发现自己在维持秩序。但一旦这些占领者离开，伊拉克人能够建立并呵护一个稳定的、联邦制的、多元主义的民主制度的机会肯定仍少于一半。

译者：7colorwolf   http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=15846&extra=page%3D1