运用一切资源武装自己 ISIS不仅靠嗜血立身

Ever since the radical totalitarians of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant erupted into the consciousness of the world, with their lightning surge from Syria into Iraq, they have been much examined with a mixture of horror and fascination.

自从激进的极权主义组织“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)横空出世、肆虐叙利亚和伊拉克以来，人们一直带着恐惧和浓厚的兴趣来研究它。

The ferocity of the fighters, switching between irregular and conventional warfare; the novelty of a jihadi group that is well armed, with self-sustaining funding and the ability to place itself at the head of a mass movement of disaffected Sunni; their acute media and propaganda skills alongside a sulphurous and savage sectarianism – all these facets of Isis have been duly noted.

人们充分注意到了ISIS的以下特点：它的战士极其残暴，在非常规和常规的战斗手段之间切换自如；与以往的圣战组织不同，ISIS装备精良、能够自己筹集满足组织发展所需的资金，能够当起逊尼派不满教众所发起的运动的领头羊；一方面善于利用媒体、宣传手段高明，另一方面信奉疯狂、野蛮的教派主义。

What is under-examined is their political sophistication, which is gradually enabling them to damage the fragile cohesion of neighbouring states, giving them a reach beyond the swaths of territory they have grasped in Syria and Iraq.

人们未能恰当地认识到的一点是，ISIS极富政治手腕，使得该组织能够逐步瓦解邻近国家之间脆弱的凝聚力，从而可以将影响力扩展到叙利亚和伊拉克它已经控制的区域以外。

Isis is banging violently on the doors of its neighbours – Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan to some extent, and maybe eventually Saudi Arabia. While it can be repulsed militarily, it can still rack up political advantage by sowing fear and exploiting divisions. It does not need to break the doors down, just wait for the faultlines to open on the other side.

ISIS正在猛烈轰击邻近国家的国门——黎巴嫩、土耳其，某种程度上还包括约旦，最终可能还会包括沙特阿拉伯。尽管我们可以在军事上击退它，但它仍然能够通过播撒恐惧的种子、利用对手阵营内部的分歧获取政治优势。它无需击破别国的国门，只需等待对手内部产生裂痕、然后乘虚而入。

“They seem to have read everything,” says a western official intimately involved in Syria and Iraq. He is referring not to the Koran or the hadith but to Mao Zedong and Frantz Fanon. Like previous iterations of jihadism, Isis may yet over-reach and self-destruct. For now, it is a sophisticated, lethal cocktail.

一名熟悉叙利亚和伊拉克情况的西方官员表示：“他们好像什么都读过。”这位官员指的不止是《古兰经》(Koran)或圣训（hadith，即默罕默德言行录——译者注），还包括毛泽东和弗朗茨•法农(Frantz Fanon)。像之前那些经历了兴衰的圣战主义组织一样，ISIS仍有可能扩张过度、自取灭亡。但就目前而言，它是个高明、具有致命威胁的组织。

The siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, for example, on the border with Turkey, is often described as strategic or symbolic. Yet there is no especial imperative why the warriors of the Isis caliphate should expend the lives of about 500 of their number to seize this particular stretch of Turkey’s 1,300km frontier with Syria and Iraq. They have turned Kobani into a symbol, but by attacking it they have driven a wedge between the neo-Islamist rulers of Turkey and their Kurdish minority.

比如说，人们通常认为，ISIS围攻位于叙利亚与土耳其边境的库尔德城市科巴尼（Kobani，阿拉伯语称艾因阿拉伯）是出于战略考虑，或是这一举动具有象征意义。然而，土耳其与叙利亚和伊拉克的边境长达1300公里，ISIS并无紧迫的理由牺牲约500名战士的生命，非要夺取科巴尼所处的这段边境。ISIS让科巴尼成为一个象征，但通过攻打这个地方，他们也离间了土耳其的新伊斯兰主义执政者和库尔德少数民族之间的关系。

In Lebanon, where wounds from its 1975-90 sectarian war are still livid, the spillover can be more direct. In August the jihadis burst through the Syrian border into the Sunni town of Arsal. Heavy fighting between the army and Sunni Islamist radicals continues in the city of Tripoli. The Lebanese army, in operational alignment with Hizbollah – the Iran-backed Shia paramilitaries fighting for the Assad regime in Syria and holding the political ring at home – seem able to cope. But this is at the cost of Sunni alienation, a political benefit for Isis.

在黎巴嫩，1975年至1990年的教派战争留下的创伤仍在隐隐作痛，ISIS在这里的影响可能更加直接。ISIS在8月突破叙利亚边界线、打入以逊尼派为主的阿萨尔城(Arsal)。在的黎波里，军方与逊尼派伊斯兰极端分子之间的激战仍在持续。黎巴嫩军方在与得到伊朗支持的什叶派准军事组织黎巴嫩真主党(Hizbollah)并肩作战，后者对外力挺阿萨德政权，对内有能力左右黎巴嫩国内的政治集团。联合作战的双方看上去能够掌控局面，但代价是疏远了逊尼派，这在政治上对ISIS有利。

Isis will keep trying to link up with local radicals and their sympathisers among the millions of Sunni refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan – where a notorious al-Qaeda spiritual guide, Abu Mohammed al-Makdisi , was arrested on Monday for incitement against the US-led “crusader” coalition against Isis that Jordan has now joined. Salafi fundamentalism has long incubated in Jordanian cities such as Zarqa and Maan, and helped spawn the precursor of Isis. “I’m not worried that Da’esh [an Arabic acronym for Isis] will break through our borders,” says a leading businessman in Amman, “I’m worried about what’s already inside them.”

ISIS将继续设法联合地方极端分子，以及土耳其、黎巴嫩和约旦境内数百万逊尼派难民中的同情者。因为煽动民众反对美国领导的对抗ISIS的“十字军”联盟（约旦如今加入了这个联盟），臭名昭著的基地组织(al-Qaeda)“精神导师”阿布•穆罕默德•马克迪西(Abu Mohammed al-Makdisi)不久前在约旦被捕。长期以来，萨拉菲原教旨主义在约旦的萨卡(Zarqa)、马安(Maan)等城市滋生，帮助孕育了ISIS的前身。“我们不担心Da’esh（ISIS的阿拉伯语缩写）会冲破我们的边界线，”约旦首都安曼的一名商业大亨表示，“我担心的是原本就存在于我们境内的东西。”

Isis is conjuring from the Sunni sense of betrayal in Syria and dispossession in Iraq the fanciful idea that Sunni worldwide – about 1.3bn of 1.6bn Muslims – are in some way a victimised minority. Countering this narrative politically needs mainstream Sunni leadership. What we have instead is a west slipping back into its comfort zone of backing Sunni autocracies. Chief among those is Saudi Arabia, with which Isis shares Wahhabi doctrines such as that the Shia are idolatrous apostates, and which has filled the void of Sunni leadership with petrodollars and poisonous bigotry.

在逊尼派看来，叙利亚背叛了教义，伊拉克逊尼派遭到强取豪夺，针对逊尼派的这种看法，ISIS提出了一个奇妙的观点：尽管全世界16亿穆斯林中有约13亿为逊尼派，但逊尼派在某种程度上却是受到迫害的少数派。要在政治上驳斥这种说法，需要主流逊尼派发挥领导力。然而，西方眼下却退回了支持逊尼派独裁政权的老路。其中最大的独裁政权就是沙特阿拉伯，它和ISIS都信仰瓦哈比(Wahhabi)教义，比如认为什叶派是盲信的背教者，沙特还用石油美元和有害的偏见填补了逊尼派领导权缺失留下的空白。