The unfortunate paradox in Georgia – and elsewhere in the post-Soviet world – is that self-serving pro-Western rhetoric has often led democratic values to be sacrificed in favor of a new dictatorship.	与后苏联世界的其他国家一样，格鲁吉亚所面临的不幸悖论是：只为一己私利的亲西方言论经常为了迎合新的专制统治而牺牲民主价值观。


When the West actively supports popular revolutions, as in Georgia and Ukraine, the newly established power relies on democratic slogans, not democratic behavior.	西方积极支持格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的民众革命，但革命所建立的政权依托的却是民主口号，而不是民主行动。


Shevardnadze, too, was initially viewed as a symbol of post-Soviet Georgian democracy.	谢瓦尔德纳泽一度也曾被看作后苏联时代格鲁吉亚民主的象征。


As a government minister in 1993, however, I was already hearing CIA officials express concern that a “Mafia state” was being created instead.	但在1993年任政府部长时，我已经听到中央情报局官员对格鲁吉亚沦为“黑手党国家”的可能性深表忧虑。


First with Shevarnadze, and now with Saakashvili, popular disillusionment reflects not rejection of democracy, but frustration with its continuing absence.	以前是谢瓦尔德纳泽，现在是萨卡什维利，格鲁吉亚民众的觉醒并不代表拒绝民主，而恰恰是民主的长期缺位使他们感到心灰意冷。


Saakashvili is evidently mesmerized by the US, and the West in general, but what is the point if there is no independent and democratic political process in Georgia today?	萨卡什维利显然对美国和西方世界有着异乎寻常的迷恋，但如果今天的格鲁吉亚没有独立和民主的政治程序，单纯的迷恋美国又有什么意义？


And why, then, is sustaining close ties to the US so desirable, while refusing to dismiss Russia as a partner is regarded as being an agent of the Kremlin?	为什么与美国保持密切关系就那么令人期待，而拒绝排斥与俄国的合作就成了克里姆林的代言人？


Is the US, in contrast to Russia, by definition honest, innocent, and high-minded?	是不是与俄国相比，美国就一定诚实、纯洁、高尚？


There should be no place for such unfortunate double standards.	绝不能容许这种双重标准的存在。


Regardless of what the Saakashvili government claims about his opponents, our political orientation is not pro-Russian, but pro-Georgian.	无论萨卡什维利政府对反对派人士作何评价，我们的政治倾向不是亲俄，而是亲格鲁吉亚。


We believe that Georgia should pursue its own interests, which it may share with Europe, Russia, or the US, but which are nonetheless our own.	我们相信格鲁吉亚应该勇敢追求自身的利益，这些利益也许与欧洲、俄国或美国所共有，但即便如此仍要坚持从我们自身出发。


We have no interest in merely executing US policy, or in basing Georgia’s foreign and domestic policy solely on distancing the country from Russia, as Saakashvili has done.	我们对单纯执行美国的政策不感兴趣，也不愿像萨卡什维利那样，把疏远俄国作为格鲁吉亚的外交和内政的基础。


Thus, pro-Georgian politics should not countenance nationalism.	因此，亲格鲁吉亚政治不应支持民族主义。


Nowadays, some of our politicians have embraced the slogan “Georgia for Georgians.”	今天，我们有些政治家笃信“格鲁吉亚人的格鲁吉亚”的口号。


But nationalism suggests the lack of a coherent conception of Georgia’s interests.	但民族主义者显然对格鲁吉亚的利益缺乏深入的了解。


Georgia’s tradition as a multinational, tolerant state, which has been weakened in the last 15 years, must be reinvigorated, because we have no need for enemies against which to define ourselves.	过去15年来，格鲁吉亚作为一个多民族、宽容国家的传统遭到了削弱，而现在必须加以恢复，因为我们不需要以树敌的方式来定义自身的存在。


A strong relationship with Russia need not come at the expense of relations with America and the West, and vice versa.	与俄国建立密切的联系并不一定要损害与美国和西方的交往，反之亦然。


Georgia should be neither pro-Russian nor pro-American.	格鲁吉亚不应该亲俄、也不应该亲美。


It is a small, poor country that desperately needs stability and economic development.	它是一个贫困的小国，迫切需要的是稳定和经济发展。


Its model should not be Palestine and permanent battle, but Switzerland and permanent prosperity.	我们的榜样不应该是巴勒斯坦的永久战争，而应该是瑞士的持久繁荣与和平。


Whose War on Terror?	谁的反恐战争？


“We are all Americans,” wrote Le Monde on September 12, 2001. And so it was with most people in the Muslim world, who were as appalled as anyone else at the carnage of the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York.	2001年9月12日法国世界报写到：“我们都成了美国人”。 大多数穆斯林世界的人也是如此，他们也和其他人一样对在华盛顿和纽约的恐怖主义大屠杀袭击感到震惊。


Indeed, when America responded to the attacks, almost no one mourned the fall of the Taliban, who were universally condemned for their fanaticism.	确实，当美国对袭击做出反应之时，几乎没有人哀悼塔利班的垮台。 塔利班的狂热主义受到全世界的谴责。


This unanimity of opinion no longer exists.	这种一致观点已经不复存在了。


In the five years since the attacks, two audiences for the so-called “war on terror” have emerged.	袭击发生后的五年时间里，出现了两种所谓的“反恐战争”观众。


Indeed, as the “war” progressed, the audience closest to the action began to see the emerging combat in a way that was diametrically opposed to that of the United States and the West.	确实，当“战争”进行之际，最为接近战场的观众开始以一种完全反对美国和西方的眼光看待正在呈现的战斗。


To the US administration, every act in the drama of the war on terror was seen as discrete and self-contained: Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.	对于美国当局而言，他们视发生在阿富汗、伊拉克、巴勒斯坦以及黎巴嫩的真主党的反恐战争的每个行动都是互不相关、各成一体的。


The Bush administration, having proclaimed a war on terror, invaded and occupied countries, and yet failed to see that these events were being linked in the eyes of people in the region.	布什政府向恐怖主义宣战，入侵并占领了不同的国家，但是却没有看到，中东地区的人民把这些事件连接了起来。


Glued to Al Jazeera and other Arab satellite channels, the various battles of the “war on terror” came to be viewed as a single chain of events in a grand plot against Islam.	他们目不转眼睛地观看半岛电视台和其他阿拉伯卫星频道，并把“反恐战争”中的各场战役视为针对伊斯兰惊天大阴谋中的系列事件。


Worse yet, America waved the banner of democracy as it prosecuted its wars. But hopes for democracy, be it secular or Islamist, for the people concerned have been buried in the rubble and carnage of Baghdad, Beirut, and Kandahar.	更为糟糕的是，美国在开战之时摇晃民主的旗帜。 但是对于民主的希望，无论是世俗的还是伊斯兰式的，对于相关的国家人民而言都被埋葬在了巴格达、贝鲁特和坎大哈的瓦砾和屠杀之中。


Many Muslims understand – as well as anyone in the West, and in the same terms – the underlying causes of the alienation that animates Islamic radicalism and violence. They know that the rigid dictatorships of the region have paralyzed their populations. Only those consumed by the fires of their rage seem able to melt the shackles of these authoritarian societies.	正如西方人士一样，许多穆斯林都理解促发伊斯兰极端主义和暴力的分离的根本原因。 他们知道该地区严酷的独裁统治让人民苦不堪言。


But the price of escape is a kind of deformation.	但是，逃避的代价是某种畸形。


Embittered, fanatical, vengeful: those who rebel against the status quo enter the wider world seeking retaliation, not just against the regimes that deformed them, but against the West, which propped up the region’s authoritarians in the interest of “stability.”	那些反抗现状的人愤怒、狂热而且充满复仇心理。 他们进入更为广大的世界去寻求复仇，不仅仅是针对让他们畸形的政权，而且是为了“稳定”的利益而支持该地区独裁政权的西方世界。


Many Muslims also understand that the problem of Palestine, unsolved for three generations, goes beyond the suffering of the Palestinian people. They know that the region’s dictators have used Palestine to justify their misrule and to avoid political and economic liberalization.	许多穆斯林还理解，历经三代人依然没有解决的巴勒斯坦问题范围要超出巴勒斯坦人民的苦难。 他们知道该地区的独裁者利用巴勒斯坦来为他们的恶劣治理提供理由并且避免政治和经济自由化。


So when America called for democracy, the hearts of many in the region soared with the hope that reform would come at last. But America, as so many times before, let them down.	所以，当美国呼吁民主之时，该地区许多人心情高涨，希望改革终于来临。 但是，正如以往许多次那样，美国让他们失望。


As people at last began to hope for more liberal and decent societies, the US continued to endorse the regimes that were repressing them. America simply could not adhere to its own democracy-promotion script.	当人民最终开始希望自由和体面的社会时，美国继续支持压迫他们的政权。 美国根本无法遵守其自身促进民主的说辞。


After the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US turned its sights on the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Instead of encouraging reform of the Saudi/Wahhabi regime – the system that spawned 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks – the average Muslim saw America as waging war on a regime that had nothing to do with that crime.	沙特瓦哈比政权体制产生了9/11袭击中19名劫机犯中的15人。 美国并没有鼓励该政权的改革，普通穆斯林民众认为美国在向一个与9/11犯罪毫无牵连的政权发动战争。


Many Muslims acquiesced in this deviation, viewing the invasion of Iraq as part of the passing of dictatorship and the coming of democracy. But the bloodstained shambles of the US occupation led America to abandon the quest for democracy.	许多穆斯林默许了这一偏离，他们认为入侵伊拉克是结束专制、迎来民主的一部分。 但是，美国占领血迹斑斑，促使美国放弃对民主的追求。


The deeper America sank into the Iraqi quagmire, the more the US began to turn a blind eye to the region’s surviving dictators, particularly those in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan.	美国陷入伊拉克的泥潭越深，美国就越开始对该地区的独裁者视而不见，特别是沙特、叙利亚、埃及以及巴基斯坦。


Indeed, the last thing the region’s dictators wanted to see was a democratic Iraq.	确实，该地区独裁者最不愿意见到的就是一个民主的伊拉克。


Almost from the moment of Saddam’s fall, Saudi/Wahhabi jihadis poured into Iraq almost unimpeded.	几乎是从萨达姆倒台一开始，沙特瓦哈比圣战份子就毫无阻拦地涌入伊拉克。


Worse yet, the Muslims who supported the project to democratize Iraq widely suspect that the Sunni resistance that incited the Iraqi civil war has been financed by Saudi oil money. (Terrorism also kept Iraqi oil from becoming a serious challenger to Saudi Arabia.)	更为糟糕的是，支持民主化伊拉克的穆斯林广泛怀疑煽动伊拉克内战的逊尼派抵抗力量是由沙特的石油金钱资助的(恐怖主义还阻止伊拉克石油成为沙特阿拉伯的严重挑战)。


So the effort to democratize Iraq – indeed, the entire American project to democratize the region – has fallen under deep suspicion by even the most moderate of Muslims.	因此民主化伊拉克、或曰美国民主化中东地区的工作受到了即使是大多数穆斯林温和派的深刻怀疑。


America, they believe, only wants a democracy that suits its interests.	他们相信，美国只是想要符合其利益的民主国家。


If Palestinians freely vote for Hamas, their choice is actively opposed.	如果巴勒斯坦人自由地选举哈马斯，那么，他们的选择就会遭到积极的反对。


Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution,” which galvanized the West in the same way as Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, has been systematically undermined.	黎巴嫩的“雪松革命”就像乌克兰的橙色革命一样令西方振奋，但是却受到了系统化的破坏。


With democracy in most of the region still a long way off – indeed, perhaps a more distant prospect now than five years ago – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeats her mantra that the dead civilians of Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, and Gaza represent the “birth pangs” of a new Middle East.	中东地区的民主依然遥不可期，与五年前相比，其前景更为遥远。 美国国务卿莱斯重复其祷文，即贝鲁特、西顿、提尔以及加沙的平民死亡代表的是新的中东分娩时的阵痛。


But until the West stops regarding dead babies as political props, we cannot understand how the Muslim world perceives all that has happened since September 11, 2001.	但是，直到��方停止把死婴看作政治道具之前，我们无法理解穆斯林世界如何看待2001年9月11日以来所发生的事件。


Only then will we understand why the unified view of five years ago has fractured so violently.	只有那时，我们才会理解为什么五年前的一致观点已经土崩瓦解。


Whose World Bank?	谁的世界银行？


NEW YORK – US President Barack Obama’s nomination of Jim Yong Kim for the presidency of the World Bank has been well received – and rightly so, especially given some of the other names that were bandied about.	纽约—美国总统奥巴马提名金辰勇为世界银行行长之举受到了广泛好评——理应如此，特别是其他提名也已昭告天下之时。


In Kim, a public-health professor who is now President of Dartmouth College and previously led the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, the United States has put forward a good candidate.	金辰勇是公共卫生专家，现任达特茅斯大学校长，此前曾担任过世界卫生组织艾滋病部门。 这是一个相当好的候选人。


But the candidate’s nationality, and the nominating country – whether small and poor or large and rich – should play no role in determining who gets the job.	但候选人的国籍以及提名国——不管是大是小、是穷是富——不应该在人选决定中起到任何作用。


The World Bank’s 11 executive directors from emerging and developing countries have put forward two excellent candidates, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Jose Antonio Ocampo of Colombia.	世界银行的11名新兴和发展中国家执行董事已经提出了两位优秀的候选人：尼日利亚的奥孔乔-伊韦拉和哥伦比亚的奥坎波。


I have worked closely with both of them.	我和这两人都有过共事。


Both are first-rate, have served as ministers with multiple portfolios, have performed admirably in top positions in multilateral organizations, and have the diplomatic skills and professional competence to do an outstanding job.	两人都是第一流的人才，在多个部门担任过部长，在多边组织担任过要职且取得过令人称道的表现，也拥有出色胜任所需要的外交技能和职业素养。


They understand finance and economics, the bread and butter of the World Bank, and have a network of connections to leverage the Bank’s effectiveness.	他们懂金融和经济、明了世界银行的基本结构，也拥有能改善世行效率所需要的人脉。


Okonjo-Iweala brings an insider’s knowledge of the institution.	奥孔乔-伊韦拉很了解世界银行的内幕。


Ocampo, like Kim, brings the advantages and disadvantages of being an outsider; but Ocampo, a distinguished professor at Columbia University, is thoroughly acquainted with the World Bank.	奥坎波和金辰勇都是外部人士，这有利也有弊； 但奥坎波作为哥伦比亚大学的杰出教授对世界银行是相当熟悉的。


He previously served not only as minister of economics and finance, but also of agriculture – a critically important qualification, given that the vast majority of the developing countries’ poor depend on farming.	他以前不但是经济和财政部长，也当过农业部长——考虑到发展中国家的大部分穷人都得依靠务农生活，这是相当重要的资历。


He also brings impressive environmental credentials, addressing another of the Bank's central concerns.	他在环境方面也有令人印象深刻的经历，这契合世行的另一大关键职责。


Both Okonjo-Iweala and Ocampo understand the role of international financial institutions in providing global public goods.	奥孔乔-伊韦拉和奥坎波都明白国际金融机构在全球公共品供给方面的重要作用。


Throughout their careers, their hearts and minds have been devoted to development, and to fulfilling the World Bank’s mission of eliminating poverty.	在两人的职业生涯中，大量心血都奉献给了发展和完成世行消除贫困的任务。


They have set a high bar for any American candidate.	对于任何美国候选人，他们都是相当高的标杆。


Much is at stake.	需要考虑的方面很多。


Almost two billion people remain in poverty in the developing world, and, while the World Bank cannot solve the problem on its own, it plays a leading role.	发展中国家仍有20亿人口生活在贫困之中，世界银行不可能单枪匹马解决这个问题，但需要担起领导之责。


Despite its name, the Bank is primarily an international development institution.	世界银行虽然挂着一个“银行”的名字，但其主要职责是国际发展机构。


Kim’s specialty, public health, is critical, and the Bank has long supported innovative initiatives in this field.	金辰勇的专长——公共卫生——相当关键，世行产期以来也一直支持着该领域的创新活动。


But health is only a small part of the Bank’s “portfolio,” and it typically works in this area with partners who bring to the table expertise in medicine.	但卫生在世行的“组合”中只是一个次要部分，而且通常只是配合其他在医药领域领先的专业伙伴。


Rumors suggest that the US is likely to insist on maintaining the perverse selection process in which it gets to pick the World Bank’s president, simply because, in this election year, Obama’s opponents would trumpet loss of control over the choice as a sign of weakness.	各路消息表明，美国可能会坚持要求有悖常理的选人程序，坚持世行行长人选由它确定，这样做的唯一原因是2012是选举年，奥巴马的对手会将美国人不能问鼎世行行长宝座夸大为奥巴马示弱的表现。


And it is more important for the US to retain that control than it is for emerging and developing countries to obtain it.	此外，保持对该职位的控制之于美国要比获得该职位之于新兴和发展中国家更重要。


Indeed, the more powerful of the emerging markets know how to live within the current system, and they may use it to their advantage.	事实上，新兴市场中实力较强者知道如何在现有体系中生存，并能利用现有体系。


They will, in effect, obtain an IOU, to be cashed in for something that is more important.	它们可以获得一张白条，用之换取更加重要的东西。


The Realpolitik of the moment makes fighting over the presidency unlikely; America may well prevail.	眼下，现实政治已使得行长人选指正毫无悬念，美国人将最终获选。


But at what cost?	问题是代价多大。


Should America continue to insist on controlling the selection process, it is the Bank itself that would suffer.	如果美国坚持死握行长选择过程控制权不放，那么受害的将是世行自身。


For years, the Bank’s effectiveness was compromised because it was seen, in part, as a tool of Western governments and their countries’ financial and corporate sectors.	多年来，世界银行的效益一直受着牵累，因为它在一定程度上被视为是西方政府及其金融和公司部门的工具。


Ironically, even America’s long-term interests would be best served by a commitment – not just in words, but also in deeds – to a merit-based system and good governance.	讽刺的是，就算是从美国的长期利益出发，最优选择也是作出唯才是举、改善治理的承诺——不仅仅是口头承诺，还要见诸实践。


One supposed achievement of the G-20 was an agreement to reform the governance of the international financial institutions – most importantly, how their leaders are selected.	G20的一个预期成果是达成关于国际金融机构治理改革的协议，其中最重要的部分就是领导人的选择。


Since expertise on development by and large lies within the emerging and developing countries – after all, they live development – it seems natural that the World Bank’s head would come from one of those countries.	如今，发展专家大体上都来自新兴和发展中国家——毕竟，这些国家生活在发展中——因此，世界银行行长应该出自这些国家中的一个似乎是理所当然的。


To maintain a cabal among developed countries, whereby the US appoints the World Bank president and Europe picks the International Monetary Fund’s head, seems particularly anachronistic and perplexing today, when the Bank and the Fund are turning to emerging-market countries as a source of funds.	维持发达国家的小算盘——美国人把持世界银行、欧洲人把持IMF——在今天看来早已落后与时代，实在令人难以理解，因为世界银行和IMF正在日益依靠新兴市场作为资金来源。


While the US, the international community, and the Bank itself repeatedly emphasize the importance of good governance, a selection procedure that de facto leaves the appointment to the US president makes a mockery of it.	美国、国际社会和世界银行自身一再强调改善治理的重要性，但行长任命权实际归属美国总统这一事实让这一切看上去颇为可笑。


Okonjo-Iweala put the matter forcefully in an interview with the Financial Times: what is at stake is a matter of hypocrisy.	奥孔乔-伊韦拉在接受《金融时报》采访时强有力地批评了这一问题：一切充满了伪善。


The integrity of the advanced industrial countries, which have a majority of the votes at the World Bank, is being put to the test.	发达工业国——它们在世界银行投票中占据着多数——的团结度正在接受考验。


Who Should Be Helped First?	谁应当首先得到帮助？


The list of urgent challenges facing humanity is depressingly long.	人类面临的急迫挑战数不胜数。


AIDS, hunger, armed conflict, and global warming compete for attention alongside government failure, malaria, and the latest natural disaster.	艾滋病、饥荒、武装冲突以及全球气候变暖等问题与政府无能、霍乱以及新近的自然灾害等一道在争取人们的注意力。


While our compassion is great, our resources are limited.	尽管我们富有同情心，但是资源有限。


So who should be helped first?	那么，谁应当首先得到帮助呢？


To some, making such priorities seems obscene.	对于某些人来说，作出这样的优先顺序看起来是可憎的。


But the United Nations and national governments spend billions of dollars each year trying to help those in need without explicitly considering whether they are achieving the most that they can.	但是，联合国和各国政府每年开支数以几十亿美元试图帮助那些需要帮助的人们，却不明确考虑它们是否最大程度地实现了其所能实现的目标。


The western media focuses on a tsunami in Asia; donations flow freely.	西方媒体关注于亚洲的海啸； 捐助源源而来。


An earthquake that devastates Pakistan garners fewer headlines, so the developed world gives a lot less.	一场摧毁巴基斯坦的地震并没有得到头条新闻报道，结果发达国家援助大为减少。


There is a better way.	我们可以有一个更好的办法。


We could prioritize our spending to achieve the greatest benefit for our money.	我们可以对我们的开支分清轻重缓急来达到最大效益。


This month, I will ask UN ambassadors how they would spend $50 billion to reduce suffering.	本月，我将询问驻联合国的大使们如何花费500亿美元来减少人类的痛苦。


They will repeat the same exercise that some of the world’s best economists tackled in a 2004 project called the “Copenhagen Consensus”: weighing up solutions to the great challenges facing the world, and deciding what should be done first.	他们将会重复当今某些最好的经济学家在2004年的一个被称为“哥本哈根共识”项目所作出的答案，那就是对世界面临的重大挑战作出评估，然后决定哪些事情应当优先处理。


But the question shouldn’t be left to politicians or Nobel laureates alone.	但是，这个问题不应当仅仅交给政客或者诺贝尔奖得主们解决。


We must all engage in the debate.	我们都应当参与到辩论中来。


One hopes that this task has been made slightly simpler by the publication of a book in which the Copenhagen Consensus economists boil down their insights.	哥本哈根共识经济学家们将他们的高见发表在一本专著之中，人们因此希望这一任务稍许变得简单一些。


Here’s one fact to consider: the entire death toll from the Southeast Asian tsunami is matched each month by the number of worldwide casualties of HIV/AIDS.	我们要考虑这样一个事实：全球每个月死于艾滋病的人数与东南亚国家海啸造成的整个死亡人数旗鼓相当。


A comprehensive prevention program providing free or cheap condoms and information about safe sex to the regions worst affected by HIV/AIDS would cost $27 billion and save more than 28 million lives.	一项完整的、向艾滋病影响最大的地区提供免费或者廉价避孕套和有关安全性行为信息的预防性项目可能花费270亿美元并且挽救2800万生命。


This, say the economists who took part in the Copenhagen Consensus, makes it the single best investment that the world could possibly make.	参与哥本哈根共识的经济学家们说，这是世界所可以作出的最佳投资。


The social benefits would outweigh the costs by 40 to one.	社会效益超出费用40倍。


Other options that the economists favored spending some of their $50 billion include providing micro-nutrients to the world’s hungry, establishing free trade, and battling malaria with mosquito nets and medication.	经济学家们倾向于花费部分500亿美元的其他选项还包括为世界饥饿人口提供微观营养、建立自由贸易以及使用蚊帐和药物与霍乱作斗争。


At the other end of the scale, responses to climate change like the Kyoto Protocol would cost more than they would achieve, so the economists crossed them off the list of things to do right now.	最后，类似京都议定书等对气候变化的对应措施得不偿失，所有经济学家们将它从优先清单中划掉。


Regardless of whether we agree with the economists, everybody must admit that we cannot do everything at once.	无论我们是否同意经济学家所言，每个人都必须承认，我们无法面面俱到。


Discussing our priorities is crucial.	讨论我们的优先项目很关键。


Often, politicians avoid prioritization.	政客们经常回避轻重缓急。


Why?	这是为什么呢？


The glib answer is because it is hard.	圆滑的解释是做起来很难。


There are many interested parties.	有许多利益相关方。


No group wants their solution to come last, and no government wants its country’s national challenges to be overlooked.	没有任何一个团体愿意让它们的方案排在最后，而且没有任何一个国家政府愿意让它们国家的挑战受到忽略。


The UN conference won’t be easy.	联合国会议不会轻而易举。


But it shows that there is a will to put prioritization squarely at the center of attention.	但是这表明，还是有意愿最大程度地关心轻重缓急的问题。 这将会产生一份待办事项清单。


It will produce a “to do” list that will demonstrate how to achieve the most that we can for humanity, which could lead, in turn, to more transparent decision-making.	这份清单将显示我们所能为人类做的最大最好的事情，而这样就会反过来导致更多透明化的决策。


The principles of economics provide a sound basis on which to make rational choices.	经济学原则为作出理性选择提供了坚实的基础。


Now, the discussion needs to shift from the academic sphere to political life.	现在，讨论应当从学术领域转移到政治生活。


It’s time for all of us to consider and compare our own priority lists.	现在已经是让我们考虑并比较我们自己的优先事项的时候了。


We must endeavor to shorten the list of challenges facing humanity.	我们必须努力缩短人类面临的挑战的清单。


But that requires all of us to engage in a debate about what we need to do first.	但是，这要求我们参加到有关哪些事情应当优先处理的辩论中来。


Who Should Lead the IMF?	谁该领导IMF？


BERKELEY – The International Monetary Fund, many say, has had a good crisis.	伯克利 —— 许多人说，国际货币基金组织（ IMF ）也曾遭遇过一场危机。


As recently as three years ago, many observers thought that the Fund had outlived its usefulness and should be closed down.	仅仅在三年前，颇有一些观察家认为，它已经失去作用，可以关门大吉了。


Since then, it has intervened in Hungary, Latvia, Iceland, and Ukraine, among other crisis-stricken countries – and has received a massive infusion of new resources.	但是后来，它先后介入了匈牙利、拉脱维亚、冰岛和乌克兰以及其他一些爆发危机的国家，并得到了新一轮大规模注资。


Part of the explanation for the higher esteem in which the IMF is now held is its recent display of intellectual flexibility – a rare virtue for a big, lumbering bureaucracy.	为什么 IMF 眼下如此炙手可热？ 部分的解释是它近来显示出一种变通精神 —— 对于一个庞大的官僚机构来说，这是一种难得的美德。


It has rethought its traditional opposition to capital controls.	它反思了传统上一贯秉持的反资本管制立场。


It has suggested that central banks may want to consider higher inflation targets in order to avoid hitting the zero bound in the event of deflationary shocks. For this, it drew a stern reproach from Germany’s Bundesbank – a clear sign that it is doing something right.	它建议各国央行考虑调高通胀目标，以免在通缩冲击下，降息时过快触及零利率底线，由此，它遭到了来自德国央行的强烈反对，而这恰恰说明它的主张是正确的。


The IMF has also put in place a Flexible Credit Line to disburse funds quickly – and free of onerous conditions – to countries buffeted by financial crosswinds through no fault of their own.	IMF 还推出了“灵活信贷额度”（ FCL ）以便快速划拨资金，资助那些在金融风暴中无辜受难的国家，而且不带附加条件。


The problem is that, despite its alluring name, the new facility has had few takers, and no Asian takers in particular.	不过，尽管这个新工具的名字听上去很有吸引力，但是目前接受者寥寥，尤其是没有亚洲国家提出申请。


Indeed, it is revealing that when South Korea was desperate for dollars following the failure of Lehman Brothers, it borrowed from the United States Federal Reserve, not from the Fund.	在雷曼兄弟倒闭后那一段时间，韩国极度需要美元，但它跑去向美联储借款，而没有向 IMF 求助，这很能说明问题。


After their experience in 1997-1998, Korean policymakers would sooner jump off a cliff than borrow, even without conditions, from the IMF.	自从有了 1997~1998 年的不快经验以后，韩国政府宁可从悬崖上跳下去，也不愿向 IMF 借钱，哪怕不附带任何条件。


Nevertheless, while not all is sweetness and light, there has been progress.	尽管有这些小插曲， IMF 还是取得了长足的进步。


And for this the IMF’s strong, politically astute management – not exactly something from which the Fund has regularly benefited in recent years – deserves credit.	它那强有力的、政治上不乏精明的管理层理应得到好评 —— 这样的管理层近年来并不多见。


Now, however, the rumor mill is heating up with gossip that the Fund’s managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will leave in order to oppose Nikolas Sarkozy in the 2012 French presidential elections.	然而，眼下正有传言，说 IMF 总裁多米尼克·施特劳斯 — 卡恩打算卸任，参加 2012 年法国总统大选，跟萨尔科齐一角高低。


Sarkozy’s popularity is hitting new lows, and Strauss-Kahn’s friends say that he has never made a secret of his political ambitions.	萨尔科齐的支持率屡创新低。 施特劳斯 — 卡恩的朋友则说，他从不隐瞒自己从政的抱负。


A lame-duck managing director would hamstring the Fund.	如果卡恩真的去意已定，成了“跛鸭”总裁，那会削弱 IMF 的影响力。


Already there is a sense that the IMF is reluctant to tell Europe more forcefully how to handle its problem with Greece because the managing director must be careful to avoid meddling in Europe’s internal politics.	已经有人在揣测，说 IMF 之所以不愿更高调地介入希腊危机，就是因为总裁必须小心翼翼地避免卷入欧洲内部的政治纠葛。


On top of this now comes the interesting news that the IMF has appointed Zhu Min, previously a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, as special adviser to Strauss-Kahn.	在这种背景下，最近又传出新闻，说 IMF 任命中国人民银行副行长朱民为总裁特别顾问。


Zhu will thus be part of the core management team.	朱民成为 IMF 核心管理团队的一员。


This, in turn, has fueled speculation that Zhu will be a candidate to become the next managing director.	这引得外界纷纷猜测，朱民将成为 IMF 下一总裁的一个人选。


It is the turn of someone from outside Europe to head the IMF – Europe having had a monopoly on the position since the Fund was created following World War II.	有人说，是时候让欧洲之外的人士来坐这个位子了。 自第二次世界大战后 IMF 成立以来，欧洲人就垄断了 IMF 总裁这一职位。


The bargain then was that the US could pick the president of the World Bank while the Europeans would get the top slot at the IMF (US policymakers in their wisdom believing that the Bank would become the more important institution).	当时欧美达成了一个默契，美国人当世界银行行长，欧洲人当 IMF 总裁（当年美国的决策者自以为是地认为世界银行会成为两者之中更重要的国际组织）。


But today’s world is more multi-polar. It is no longer dominated by the Atlantic economies, so those economies should no longer dictate who holds the top jobs at the two Bretton Woods institutions.	但当今世界已是个多极化的世界，它再也不是大西洋两岸的经济体所主导的那个世界了，因此，这些经济体也不应该继续垄断布雷顿森林体系里最重要的两个机构的领导职位。


It is now, the argument goes, another region’s turn.	有人由此推论说，应该轮到其他地区来分享权力了。


The obvious choice is Asia, home to the most dynamic emerging markets.	亚洲当是首选，因为世界上最有活力的几大新兴市场经济体都位于这片大陆。


It is the region to which the world’s economic center of gravity is shifting.	世界经济的重心正在向这一地区移动。


If you ask Asian leaders what would make them consider again approaching the Fund after their traumatic experience with IMF “assistance” in 1997-1998, they will answer: an Asian managing director.	如果你问亚洲各国领导人，在��了 1997~1998 年 IMF “援助”的“创伤记忆”之后，怎么才能让他们再次考虑向 IMF 求助，他们会回答：除非 IMF 有个亚洲人当总裁。


In fact, this is precisely the wrong way to think about the problem.	可实际上，这种思考方式恰恰是错的。


The IMF’s problem in the past has been parochialism and lack of accountability.	IMF 过去的问题是狭隘和不负责任。


The best way to ensure that the Fund remains open to new ideas is by selecting the person with the best ideas to lead it.	要确保改革后的 IMF 保持开放心态，容纳新思想，最好的办法是选择最有头脑的人去领导它。


The best way to ensure that the IMF’s management is accountable to all of its governmental shareholders is to prevent the top job from becoming the sinecure of any region, whether Europe or Asia.	要让它保持对各方负责的态度，最好的办法也是不要让总裁职位成为 任何 地区的禁脔，不论是欧洲还是亚洲。


The next managing director should be selected on the merits, not on the basis of nationality.	下一任 IMF 总裁的推选标准应当是能力，而不是国籍。


There should be an open competition, in which the best candidate wins on the basis of his or her ideas.	应当允许公开竞争，让提出最好理念的最佳候选人胜出。


Asia has plenty of competent economic officials who might be considered as the next managing director of the IMF.   But just because they are Asian is not reason enough to select them.	亚洲有很多能力很强的经济官员，都值得考虑作为下任 IMF 总裁的人选。 但如果要选择他们中的任何一个人，都不应仅仅因为他 / 她是亚洲人。


Prepping Gay Men for PrEP	让男同性恋了解PrEP


LONDON – In October, two groups researching the effectiveness of a potential breakthrough drug in the fight against HIV did something unusual.	伦敦——10月，在抗击艾滋病工作中研究某种潜在突破性药物的两个小组取得了非同寻常的突破。


They announced that the therapy they were testing, an antiretroviral drug called Truvada, had proved effective enough to end the randomized phases of the trials, and that they were offering the pill to all of the studies’ participants.	他们宣布已证实测试对象抗逆转录药物“特鲁瓦达”的效果足以通过随机阶段试验，他们目前正将此药品提供给所有的试验参与者。


The researchers found that gay men who take Truvada, in addition to using condoms when they have sex, were significantly less likely to contract HIV.	研究人员发现服用特鲁瓦达的男同性恋若能在性行为中配合使用避孕套，将大幅降低感染艾滋病毒的风险。


This is further evidence of the effectiveness of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a technique by which people who are HIV-negative use antiretroviral drugs to protect themselves from infection.	这进一步证实了接触前预防（PrEP）技术的有效性，该技术旨在让艾滋病毒测试阴性者利用抗逆转录病毒药物保护自己远离感染威胁。


In 2011, a trial funded by the Gates Foundation found that straight couples using Truvada reduced the risk of transmitting HIV by 73%.	2011年，由盖茨基金会资助的一项试验发现服用特鲁瓦达的异性恋夫妇感染艾滋病毒的风险降低了73%。


Those fighting to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS thus have a new tool in their arsenal.	为防止艾滋病毒/艾滋病传播而奋斗的人终于有了新工具来充实自己的武器库。


The question now is how best to deliver it to those who need it most: gay men in developing countries.	现在的问题是如何才能更好地交给那些最需要的人：生活在发展中国家的男同性恋。


This summer, the World Health Organization took an important step to that end, recommending PrEP for all gay men and men who have sex with men, making it the first major international health organization to do so.	今年夏天，世卫组织为实现这一目标迈出了重要的一步，向所有男同性恋及男同性性行为群体推荐PrEP，从而成为首家采取上述措施的重要国际卫生机构。


The WHO estimates that increased use of PrEP could reduce HIV infections by up to 25% over the next decade among men who have sex with men (this category includes anyone with elevated risk, not just those who identify as gay).	世卫组织预测扩大使用PrEP可以在今后十年男同性性行为群体中减少高达25%的艾滋病毒感染（该群体囊括了所有高风险个体，而不只是已经明确的男同性恋）。


But an important obstacle remains: the legal predicament of gay men in much of the developing world.	但多数发展中国家男同性恋法律困境等重要障碍依然存在。


In countries like Nigeria, where anti-homosexuality legislation has recently been approved, those following the WHO’s new PrEP guidelines could find themselves subject to imprisonment.	像尼日利亚这样的国家刚刚批准了反同性恋立法，导致执行世卫组织PrEP新规者可能为此遭受监禁的威胁。


The climate of officially sanctioned homophobia in Nigeria has already set back the fight against AIDS.	官方认可的尼日利亚恐同氛围已经破坏了抗击艾滋病斗争的成果。


In 2006, a study found that 13% of men who have sex with men in Nigeria were HIV-positive, compared to 4.5% of all Nigerians.	2006年， 一项研究发现尼日利亚男同性性交群体13%的人艾滋病毒测试呈阳性，而该数据在尼全体民众中仅有4. 5%。


By 2012, the HIV rate among men who have sex with men had jumped to 17%.	截止2012年，男同性性交群体中的艾滋病毒感染率已经上升至17%。


Meanwhile, an increasing number of men reported encountering homophobia at healthcare centers, making them less likely to seek help.	此外，报告在医疗中心遭遇同性恋恐惧症的人越来越多，使他们寻求治疗的积极性大打折扣。


The consequences could not be more serious.	这样的后果严重到了极点。


Two years ago, a young HIV-positive Nigerian man contacted me on Facebook to tell me about his monthly ordeal at the clinic.	两年前，一位艾滋病毒测试呈阳性的尼日利亚男青年在Facebook上与我联系，向我讲述了他每个月在诊所经受的折磨。


The nurse at the hospital spent more time lecturing him on the evils of homosexuality than telling him about the drugs he was taking and their possible side effects.	医院的护士长篇大论地向他讲述同性恋的罪恶，而不是向他解释所服的药物和药物可能的副作用。


The man, a third-year medical student, told me that he had decided to stop going to the clinic.	这位男青年当时是医学院三年级学生，他告诉我他决定不再去诊所接受治疗。


When I asked how he would continue treatment, he said that he had a friend abroad who could get him the drugs.	我问他他想如何继续接受治疗，他说他在国外有朋友，可能帮他买药。


Less than two years later, I saw a Facebook update announcing his death.	不到两年后，我看到Facebook上的一条新信息宣布了他的死讯。


My Facebook friend is not the only one who has paid the price for Nigeria’s homophobia.	我在Facebook上的朋友并不是为尼日利亚恐同氛围付出代价的唯一一个。


A preliminary report from the Solidarity Alliance Nigeria, a coalition of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) organizations, details a huge decrease in the use of HIV services by men who have sex with men in the six months following the enactment of the anti-gay legislation.	尼日利亚团结联盟是由男女同性恋、双性恋和变性人（LGBT）组织组成的联盟机构，其初步报告详细说明了反同性恋法出台六个月后在男同性性行为群体中使用HIV服务的人大幅减少。


The decrease ranges from 40% in Lagos – Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan city – to 70% in Kano, a predominantly Muslim state.	具体降幅从尼日利亚最国际化城市拉各斯的40%到以穆斯林为主的卡诺州的70%不等。


Nigerians living with HIV must do more than just fight the infection; they also must brave social stigma, weather discrimination by secular and religious institutions, and now, potentially, face threats from the legal system.	尼日利亚的艾滋病毒感染者不仅要对抗感染； 还必须承受来自社会的羞辱、面对世俗和宗教机构歧视的目光。


In this environment, the promise of PrEP begins to dim, as the risks of seeking treatment outweigh the potentially life-saving benefits.	现在，他们还有可能面临来自法律系统的威胁。 在这样的环境下， PrEP的前景开始变得暗淡，因为潜在的治疗收益抵不过寻求治疗所带来的风险。


The story is similar in Uganda.	乌干达的状况也与此相似。


Last spring, as legal persecution of gays there mounted, the government raided an HIV clinic and withheld its operating license for providing care and support to HIV-positive men who have sex with men.	去年春天，随着对同性恋法律迫害的升级，政府突击检查了一家为男同性性交群体HIV阳性患者提供医疗服务及支持的艾滋病诊所并暂扣了其营业执照。


As an African activist with more than ten years of experience in the fight against HIV, I hope that the WHO will build on its important first step of advising the use of PrEP.	作为在抗击HIV领域有10余年经验的非洲活动家，我希望世卫组织能在迈出建议使用PrEP这关键一步的基础上更上一层楼。


That means initiating a public conversation with countries like Nigeria, Uganda, Gambia, and Russia on the importance of inclusion in the battle against HIV.	这意味着就包容对抗击HIV病毒斗争的重要性方面与尼日利亚、乌干达、冈比亚和俄罗斯等国家展开公众对话。


The WHO should make it clear that while it may not be advocating for LGBT political rights, it is determined to ensure that all those who can benefit from PrEP are able to access the necessary drugs, without fear of legal consequences.	世卫组织应该明确表态虽然它或许并不宣扬男女同性恋、双性恋和变性人（LGBT）的政治权利，但却有决心确保能从PrEP中受益的所有人都能获得必须的药品，而不必担心可能的法律后果。


Researchers, drug companies, and human-rights campaigners must take up the fight to ensure that PrEP is made available – without risk – to those who need it most.	研究人员、制药公司和人权活动家必须担负起确保 PrEP能够普及的斗争责任——让最需要的群体不冒任何风险就能得到它。


Who’s Who on Putin’s Payroll?	普京的工资单花名册


MOSCOW – Germany’s ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is a legend in Russia.	莫斯科——德国前总理格哈德·施罗德在俄罗斯是个传奇人物。


He serves Gazprom’s interests for a measly couple of million euros a year, sits in at sessions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and writes books about his staunch friendship with “Genosse Wladimir,” who, in the not-so-distant past, earned himself the well-deserved nickname of “Stasi” among business circles in gangster-ridden St. Petersburg.	他为挣得区区每年数百万欧元的酬金替俄罗斯天然气公司工作，列席俄罗斯科学院召集的会议，并写书称颂他与“弗拉基米尔同志”之间忠诚的友谊，而后者就在不算太远的过去，还在完全由歹徒控制的圣彼得堡企业界当之无愧地赢得了的“东德秘密警察”（Stasi）的浑名。


But it is not immediately obvious whether it is Schroeder licking Putin’s boots nowadays or vice versa.	不过现在究竟是施罗德对普京俯首听命还是情况恰恰相反似乎并不清楚。


The two of them are building, or trying to build, the Nord Stream gas pipeline, an exceptionally costly project that satisfies twin strategic objectives.	这两人正在建设、或者说设法建设服务于双重战略目标的造价极端高昂的北溪（Nord Stream）输气管线。


Demonstratively hostile to the interests of both Belarus and Ukraine, the pipeline is intended to ensure that these countries are under Russia’s energy thumb, regardless of who is in power in Minsk and Kiev.	这项工程将威胁到白俄罗斯和乌克兰两国的利益，这条管线目的是确保无论明斯克和基辅由谁来当政，这两个国家都完全受制于俄罗斯的能源。


As a bonus, the pipeline will also consolidate the Russian economy’s status as an appendage of Germany’s – its supplier of natural resources.	附带的好处是这条管线将进一步巩固俄国经济相对于德国的附属地位——俄国是德国自然资源的供应商。


Certain of Schroeder’s predecessors as German chancellor sought to attain the same objective by rather different means.	在施罗德之前任职的某些德国总理曾试图通过完全不同的手段达到同样的目标。


The Kremlin’s achievements in securing the help of Americans willing to offer their influence are equally impressive.	克里姆林在争取有影响力的美国人帮助方面也同样成绩斐然。


Indeed, the Obama administration’s Russia policy is being nurtured with advice from people who have no official position in the administration but close business ties to Russia and the Kremlin: Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker, Thomas Graham, and Dimitri Simes.	事实上，影响奥巴马政府对俄政策的人士很多并未在政府中正式任职，而是与俄国和克里姆林有着千丝万缕的商业关系：亨利·基辛格、詹姆斯·A·贝克、托马斯·格雷厄姆和迪米特里·西门斯。


The first two are major geo-politicians; Graham and Simes are respected as outstanding Russia specialists.	前两位是著名的地缘政治家，格雷厄姆和西门斯则是作为杰出的俄罗斯专家而倍受尊敬。


They write key reports for the administration, and shuttle between Moscow and Washington, coordinating the parameters of the Obama administration’s effort to “reset” the bilateral relationship.	他们为政府起草关键报告，在莫斯科和华盛顿之间穿梭往返，对奥巴马政府“重塑”双边关系努力的各项参数进行协调。


Like Schroeder, all these people are not economically disinterested.	像施罗德一样，这些人在经济利益方面并非没有私心。


Baker is a consultant for the two companies at the commanding heights of the Russian economy, Gazprom and Rosneft.	贝克在占领俄国经济制高点的俄罗斯天然气公司和俄罗斯石油公司担任顾问。


The Kissinger Associates lobbying group, whose Russian section is headed by Graham, feeds in to the Kissinger-Primakov working group, a quasi-private-sector effort, blessed by Putin, to deepen ties between Russia and the United States.	而基辛格顾问公司游说团的俄罗斯分部则由格雷厄姆领导，为基辛格－普里马科夫工作组提供服务，这是一股受到普京庇护的准私人力量，以深化俄美两国之间的关系为目标。


It is highly instructive to read the recommendations of these people and groups, as they unobtrusively render the objectives of their Kremlin clients into a language familiar to American leaders.	阅读上述人士及组织的建议非常发人深省，因为他们谨慎地把克里姆林客户的目标翻译成与美国领导人相似的语言表达。


Graham’s latest contribution, “Resurgent Russia and US Purposes,” is most revealing in this respect.	格雷厄姆的最新贡献，“复兴的俄罗斯和美国目标”在这方面最具启迪作用。


The author finds the government of a “Russia getting up off its knees” to consist of progressive modernizers fully aware of the challenges facing their country as it attempts to “return to the great powers club.”	作者发现“站起来的俄国”政府由进步的改革人士构成，这些人对国家面临的挑战具有清醒的认识，并企图“重返大国俱乐部”。


“In order to become a genuinely developed and modern country,” Graham continues, “in the coming decade Russia will need to invest at least one trillion dollars in modernizing its infrastructure.	“为了成为真正意义上的发达现代化国家，”格雷厄姆继续写道，“俄罗斯在今后十年中需要投入至少1万亿美元，用于实现基础设施现代化。


America and the West in general have a vital interest in seeing the modernization of Russia succeed.	美国和西方一般来讲愿意目睹俄国现代化取得成功。


The lion's share of the technologies, know-how, and a substantial proportion of the investment, needs to come from Europe and the USA.”	这里面最大部分的技术、诀窍和占很大比例的投资都需要来自欧洲和美国。 ”


In addition to the technology and investments, Graham quietly slips in a foreign policy suggestion for the Obama administration that is sure to please the Kremlin: “Finlandizing” Ukraine.	除去技术和投资以外，格雷厄姆还在不知不觉间为奥巴马政府提出了外交政策建议，这个建议肯定非常符合克林姆林的胃口：即实现乌克兰的“芬兰化”。


Unless that sort of appeasement is pursued, he warns, Russia will continue to oppose the US “wherever and whenever it can.”	他警告除非采取这样的缓和政策，俄罗斯将会继续“在任何可能的时间和地点”对抗美国。


According to Graham, “At the extreme, a weak Russia, with its vast resources and sparse population east of the Urals, could become the object of competition among the great powers, notably China and the United States.”	按照格雷厄姆的说法，“一个衰落的俄罗斯至多可以凭借乌拉尔以东稀少的人口及其广袤的资源成为大国，尤其是中美两国争夺的对象。 ”


That unspoken help-us-develop-or-we’ll-let-the-Chinese-do-it threat is a logical development of Prime Minister Putin’s homily at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, where he advocated decisive action to end the world economic crisis.	这种“帮助我们发展否则我们就求助于中国人”的隐含威胁是普京总理在今年达沃斯世界经济论坛说教的合乎逻辑的发展，他在达沃斯论坛上倡议采取果断行动，结束世界经济危机。


His recipe?	你问他的办法？


Western countries should write off half a trillion dollars’ worth of debt owed to them by the Russian state corporations run by his pals from the Dresden KGB and the Ozero dacha cooperative.	西方国家应当取消由他的好友管理的德累斯顿克格勃和Ozero dacha合作企业所欠下的价值5千亿美元的债务。


But no amount of money will succeed in modernizing Putin's kleptocratic regime, which has already squandered trillions in oil wealth.	可是多少钱都无法实现普京窃国政权的现代化，他们已经挥霍了数万亿美元的石油财富。


Simply put, the Putin system is politically, institutionally, and intellectually antithetical to the task of modernization.	简言之，普京的制度无论在政治、制度还是知识结构上都与现代化的目标背道而驰。


Graham’s only error in his presentation is his attempt to frighten the administration with a hypothetical confrontation between the US and China over Russian resources.	格雷厄姆在表述中���唯一错误就是企图用美中争夺俄罗斯资源的对峙假设来恐吓政府。


This is not his area of specialization.	这超出了他的专业范畴。


Kissinger works personally with the Chinese account, jointly propounding with his long-time rival Zbigniew Brzezinski the notion, so seductive for an America growing weary of its imperial burden, of a global Big Two.	基辛格与中国客户有不少私人接触，他与自己的长期对手兹比格涅夫·布热津斯基共同提出了一种学说，这对越来越厌倦帝国负担及全球两大国现状的美国很有吸引力。


Here is a recent sample of Kissinger’s geopolitical arts: “The role of China in a new world order is crucial.	下面是基辛格地缘政治艺术的最新范例：“中国在新世界秩序中的作用至关重要。


A relationship that started on both sides as essentially a strategic design to constrain a common adversary has evolved over the decades into a pillar of the international system... The Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level.	双方发展出来的限制共同对手的战略设计实质已在近几十年间演变为国际体系的基石…中美关系需要上升到新的层次。


This generation of leaders has the opportunity to shape relations into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the post-war period.”	就像二战结束后的跨大西洋关系一样，这一代领导人有机会缔造同呼吸共命运的新美中关系。 ”


No doubt Kissinger believes every word he wrote, but his ideas also honestly articulate the aspirations of his customers.	无疑基辛格相信自己写下的每一个字，不过他的理念也忠实地表达了客户的愿望。


It’s just that not all customers have the same motives.	但问题是并非所有客户都抱有完全相同的动机。


One wants to get his hooks into a further trillion dollars that it can pick away at, while the other wants to become “a central construct of the system of international relations.”	他们有的人想要再侵吞1万亿美元，以供今后慢慢挥霍，而其他人则想要成为“国际关系系统的核心要素。


But, in both cases, the customers are getting the influence for which they are paying.	”但无论动机如何，这些客户为购买影响力所花的每一分钱都可谓物有所值。


Who Wants Peace in the Middle East?	谁希望中东和平？


Forty years after the Six Day War peace between Israelis and Palestinians seems as distant as ever.	在六日战争四十年以后，以色列人和巴勒斯坦人之间的和平似乎依然像过去一样遥不可及。


Israel still refuses to accept the new Palestinian national unity government as a negotiating partner because Hamas is part of that government.	以色列依然拒绝接受新的巴勒斯坦民族团结政府作为谈判对手，因为哈马斯是那个政府的一部分。


What is the cause of this seeming paradox?	这个看上去有些自相矛盾的事情的原委是什么呢？


Is there any hope?	还存在希望吗？


The Palestinian government is united administratively, but divided politically.	巴勒斯坦政府只是在行政上是联合的，但是在政治上却是分裂的。


The Palestinians have one government with two policies.	巴勒斯坦人的政府有着两种政策。


Politically, Palestine’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh remains against recognizing Israel and respecting the existing agreements.	在政治上，巴勒斯坦总理哈尼亚依然拒绝承认以色列以及尊重已有的协议。


He declared that he is for the continuation of resistance in all forms.	他宣称他支持继续进行所有形式的抵抗。


What kind of guarantee of a good faith effort to reach a peace agreement can come from such a stance?	对于一个持这样立场的人，有谁能保证他会以真诚的努力去达成一项和平协议呢？


That is the question the European Union needs to ask itself as it debates whether to resume providing financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.	这正是欧盟在争论是否应该恢复对巴勒斯坦权力机构的经济援助时应该问自己的问题。


The EU should make it clear to Hamas that the Union is not going to finance terror and is not going to finance a refusal to make peace.	欧盟应该明确地向哈马斯表明它不会资助恐怖活动，也不会援助拒绝达成和平。


If the Palestinians want to have European help – which I support completely – it must be ready to make peace, not to break peace.	如果巴勒斯坦人想得到欧洲的帮助，对此我完全表示支持，那么它必须准备好达成和平，而不是破坏和平。


After all, it is not Hamas as a party that is objectionable; what is objectionable are the politics and policies which Hamas pursues.	不管怎样，应该反对的不是作为一个政党的哈马斯，而是哈马斯遵循的政治和政策。


We have nothing against Hamas; we are against their belligerent policies, which service in government has not changed.	我们对哈马斯并不抱有成见，我们反对的是它好战的政策，这种政策在它加入政府后依然没有改变。


There was a time when the PLO held positions that were the same as those of Hamas.	过去巴解组织的立场曾经是和哈马斯是一样的。


Then the PLO changed.	此后巴解组织改变了它的立场。


If the current Palestinian leadership changes its position, there will be no problem from our side.	如果现在的巴勒斯坦领导层也改变它的立场的话，我们这面是绝对没有问题的。


We will have nothing against negotiations. We are for negotiations.	我们绝对不会反对通过谈判解决问题，我们赞成谈判。


We are for the “two-state solution.”	我们赞成“两国方案”。


We accept the Middle East “road map.”	我们接受中东“路线图”。


What we are against is terror.	我们反对的是恐怖主义。


Where we cannot agree, however, is on a “right of return” for Palestinians.	然而，我们所不能同意的，是巴勒斯坦人有“回归的权利”。


If such a right were recognized, there would be a Palestinian majority instead of a Jewish majority, which would mean the end of the Jewish state.	如果接受这种权利，巴勒斯坦人就会取代犹太人成为多数，而这意味着犹太国家的终结。


This is a demographic, not a religious, question: an Arab state is where the Arabs are the majority, and the Jewish state is where the Jews are the majority.	这是一个人口的问题，而不是一个宗教的问题：一个阿拉伯国家应该是阿拉伯人占据多数，而犹太人的国家应该是犹太占据多数。


Indeed, the “right of return” contradicts the very idea of a two-state solution, as it would mean one state – a Palestinian state.	事实上，“回归的权利”正是与两国方案相抵触的，因为它将意味着只有一个国家，即巴勒斯坦国家。


Nobody in Israel will accept this.	没有哪个以色列人会接受这一点。


But there are other problems in the region that Israel – and the world – must face.	但是在这个地区还有其他的一些问题是以色列以及全世界必须要面对的。


The Palestinians’ current unity government resulted from Saudi mediation, which came in response mainly to Iran’s ambition to increase its influence, not only in Iraq, but also in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.	巴勒斯坦当前的联合政府来自沙特的调解，而这主要是出于对伊朗想不仅是在伊拉克，还包括黎巴嫩、加沙和西岸增强其影响力的野心的回应。


Of course, that issue is completely outside Israel’s control.	当然，这个问题完全不在以色列的控制范围之内。


The ongoing fight in the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shi’a recalls the struggle between Protestants and Catholics in seventeenth-century Europe.	穆斯林世界逊尼派和什叶派之间正在进行的斗争令人回想起十七世纪欧洲发生在新教徒与天主教派之间的战争。


So it is little wonder that the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, and the Gulf states are seeking to resist Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in the region.	所以不难想象沙特人、约旦人、埃及人以及海湾国家都在努力寻求抵制伊朗在该地区的霸权野心。


Nevertheless, the stakes are far higher than in the seventeenth century, because Iran represents a threat that combines a fanatic religion with a determination to acquire nuclear weapons.	然而，现在的利害关系要远比十七世纪时严重得多，因为伊朗人所代表的威胁融合了狂热的宗教和获得核武器的决心。


Indeed, Iran is the only country that openly declares its desire to destroy another member of the United Nations.	事实上，伊朗是唯一一个公开宣称要毁灭联合国的另一个成员国的国家。


That is a threat that every country is obliged to take seriously.	这样的一种威胁是任何一个国家都必须严肃对待的。


When a country’s president delivers crazy speeches, denies the Holocaust, and does not hide his ambition to control the Middle East, who can guarantee that the threat is not serious?	当一个国家的总统发表疯狂的演讲，拒绝承认二战期间纳粹对犹太人的大屠杀的存在，并且丝毫不掩饰他控制整个中东地区的野心，谁能保证这样的一种威胁不是真的呢？


The issue is not one of restoring nuclear “balance” to the Middle East, as Iran’s leaders maintain.	问题并不是伊朗的领导人所一再声称的要恢复中东地区的核“平衡”。


First of all, Israel does not threaten anybody.	首先，以色列并不威胁任何人。


Israel never said that it wants to destroy Iran; Israel never openly proclaimed that it would enrich uranium and build nuclear bombs in order to destroy another country.	以色列从未说过它想要毁灭伊朗这样的话； 以色列从未公开宣称它要进行浓缩油活动以及制造核弹头以摧毁另一个国家。


On the contrary, Israel has said that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East.	恰恰相反，以色列表态说它绝不会在中东首先使用核武器。


But that does not mean that we can afford to ignore an obvious threat from countries that want to destroy us.	但是那并不意味着我们会对来自其他国家的想要毁灭我们的明显威胁置之不理。


Despite the current unfavorable situation, the path to stabilizing the Middle East still leads through joint economic projects.	尽管面对目前不利的局面，稳定中东之路依然通过联合经济计划在延续着。


Even now, Israel is planning to build a new “corridor of peace,” which will comprise the Jordanians, the Palestinians, and us.	甚至现在，以色列正在计划建立一条新的“和平走廊”，它将包含约旦人、巴勒斯坦人还有我们。


Within the framework of this project, we are seeking to halt the dehydration of the Dead Sea, build a joint airport and a joint water network with Jordan, and develop tourism infrastructure, at a cost of up to $5 billion.	在这个计划的框架内，我们正寻求制止死海的脱水化、与约旦建造一个联合机场和联合水网，开发旅游基础设施，其总成本高达50亿美元。


We have the donors, so there is no shortage of money to finance our efforts, which, I am sure, will be realized.	我们有捐献资金的人，所以我们的努力不会出现资金短缺的现象，而我相信，我们的努力一定能够实现。


Israel wants – indeed, desperately needs – peace and stability in the Middle East, and we will continue to do everything in our power to achieve it.	以色列非常非常希望看到中东地区的和平与稳定，而我们将继续尽我们的一切努力去实现这一点。


But we cannot reach that goal alone, much less negotiate with those whose idea of a stable and peaceful Middle East is one that has no place for Israel.	但是我们无法单靠我们自己去实现这一目标，更无法通过与那些在他们有关一个稳定与和平的中东的概念中并没有以色列的位置的人谈判去实现这一目标。


Who Will Eclipse America?	谁将压倒美国?


WASHINGTON, DC – According to Voltaire, the Roman Empire fell “because all things fall.”	发自华盛顿特区——伏尔泰曾说，罗马帝国的崩溃是因为“一切都崩溃了”。


It is hard to argue with this as a general statement about decline: nothing lasts forever. But it is also not very useful.	当然我们还可以用“没有什么是永恒的”这句话来解释国家的衰落，但这句话同时也没什么实际意义。


In thinking, for example, about American predominance in the world today, it would be nice to know when it will decline, and whether the United States can do anything to postpone the inevitable.	但如果在思考美国当今的世界霸权时能够知道它何时衰落，而美国又能采取哪些方法延缓这一进程，就再好不过了。


Contemporary commenters despaired of the Roman Empire for several hundred years before it finally collapsed.	当今的评论家们都对罗马帝国在崩溃前依然维持了数百年而感到绝望。


Could America find its way to a similar extension?	那么美国又能否找到类似这样延长其支配地位的途径？


In terms of providing an essential structure for discussion of this problem, Arvind Subramanian’s new book, Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance, is a major contribution.	而在为该问题提供一个可供讨论的必要框架方面，阿尔文·苏布拉曼尼恩的新书《日食：生活在中国经济霸权的阴影之下》做出了一个重要贡献。


(Full disclosure: Subramanian and I are colleagues at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and we have worked together on other issues.)	（信息披露：苏布拉曼尼恩与笔者都在美国彼得森国际经济研究所共事，并在其他课题上展开合作）。


In particular, Subramanian develops an index of economic dominance that should become a focus of conversation anywhere that people want to think about changes in world economic leadership.	尤其重要的是，苏布拉曼尼恩制定出了用以一个衡量经济强权的指数，而这一指数应当被那些正在思考世界经济领导权变迁的人们视为议论的焦点。


There is no need to know any economics in order to be fascinated by this book: it is about power, pure and simple.	阅读这本书并不需要任何经济基础：因为书中的内容都是关于——纯粹而简单的——权力。


The basic facts are incontrovertible.	有些基本事实是毋庸置疑的。


The United Kingdom was the world’s dominant economic power from the rise of industrialization in the early nineteenth century. But it lost its predominance and was gradually eclipsed by the US, which, at least since 1945, has been the undisputed leader among market-based economies.	自19世纪早期工业化兴起后英国一度占据世界经济霸主地位，但它却逐渐失去其统治力并被美国取代，而后者至少从1945年以来一直是市场经济国家中当之无愧的领袖。


The US surpassed the UK in terms of industrial production as early as the end of the nineteenth century, but that was not enough to tip the balance.	美国的工业生产其实在19世纪末期已经超过了英国，但这并不足以影响后者的地位。


Economic predominance shifted only when the UK ran large current-account deficits during World Wars I and II – the country had to borrow heavily in order to finance its war effort, and imports were significantly higher than exports.	经济霸权只有在英国在一战和二战中积累了大量经常账户赤字——因为必须大规模借贷来维持战争支出，而且进口远大于出口——之后才最终易手。


Much of the world’s gold reserves ended up in the hands of the US.	全球大部分黄金储备最后也都集中到了美国人手里。


This helped undermine the role of the British pound internationally and catapulted the US dollar to the fore – particularly after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, at which it was agreed that countries would hold their reserves in dollars as well as gold.	这使得英镑的国际地位大受影响，而美元则粉墨登场——尤其是1944年建立布雷顿森林体系，各方协定可以将美元和黄金一样用作储备之后。


More recently, however, it has been the Americans’ turn consistently to run large current-account deficits, buying more from the rest of the world than they earn by selling goods and services abroad.	但最近的情况反而是美国越来越依赖于大规模经常账户赤字，出口的收入也低于比进口的支出。


On this dimension, the US seems destined to repeat the mistake of the British.	在这一点上，美国似乎注定要步英国后尘。


At the same time, emerging-market countries’ per capita income has risen – as has their international role.	与此同时，新兴市场国家的人均收入则不断攀升——同时提升的还有其国际地位。


In particular, China has followed a strategy in the past decade or so that entails running large current-account surpluses and building up foreign-exchange reserves, which are now reported to be in excess of $3 trillion.	尤其是中国在过去十多年中奉行了一个创造大量经常账户顺差并积累外汇储备的战略，使其当前的外汇储备总额达到3万亿美元之巨。


Indeed, Subramanian’s most provocative argument is that China has already surpassed the US in terms of economic dominance – but we have not yet woken up to this new reality.	事实上，苏布拉曼尼恩最具争议性的观点就是中国在经济霸权方面其实已经超过了美国——只是我们还未能意识到这个新现实而已。


The story is fascinating and well told; but there is still a great deal worth arguing.	针对过去那段精彩历史已经有大量论述； 但依然有很多问题值得深究。


For example, did the British decline because the US could not be stopped, or because of problems within the British Empire and at home?	比如说，英国的衰落是否是因为美国的不可遏制，而是源自于整个大英帝国或者英国本土的内部问题？


A few years ago, some regarded Japan as having overtaken the US. Europe also was supposedly vying for global economic dominance.	许多年前也有人认为日本已经取代了美国，当时的欧洲似乎也在争夺全球经济霸权。


Now any such claims would seem preposterous.	如今看来这一切都近乎荒缪。


In both cases, the credit system got out of control, with too much lending to the private sector in 1980’s Japan and excessive government borrowing during the 2000’s in the eurozone.	上述两个地区的信贷系统其实都已失控，1980年代的日本向私人部门发放了过多贷款，而2000年后的欧元区国家政府又欠下了巨额政府债务。


Similarly, it remains unclear that the Chinese development path will remain smooth.	同样，中国的发展能否一直保持平稳也有待观察。


Fixed investment in China is close to 50% of GDP – which must be a world record.	该国固定资产投资额已经接近GDP的50%——这堪称一项世界记录。


Credit to state firms and to households continues to grow rapidly.	对国有企业和家庭的信贷则持续快速增长。


Isn’t this a version of exactly what derailed Japanese growth?	这不正跟当年日本的失控增长类似吗？


On the key issue of being able to issue a “reserve currency” that investors and governments want to hold, Subramanian is correct that China has many of the prerequisites in place.	在发行一个投资者和政府都愿意持有的“储备货币”问题上，苏布拉曼尼恩认为中国已经具备了许多先决条件，这是事实。


But it still lacks some key elements, including fully-fledged property rights.	但中国依然缺乏某些关键因素。 包括完全意义上的所有权。


If you worry about getting your money out of a country when times turn tough, China is not an attractive place to hold your reserves.	如果你担心当经济环境转差时无法转移资金的话，中国就不是一个适合存放储备的地方。


External challenges do sometimes bring down states.	外部挑战有时也会拖垮整个国家。


But, more frequently, the big problems are internal – the regime cannot deliver growth, its legitimacy fades, and people start to head for the exits (or at least get their money out).	但更频繁出现的情况时是国家内部出现了大的变故——政权无法实现经济增长，失去其合法性，人民开始设法转移到其他国家（或至少将资金转移出国）。


If the US is eclipsed any time soon, this will more likely be due to its loss of social cohesion and its dysfunctional politics.	因此如果美国将在近期任何时候被超越的话，这更可能是因为其社会凝聚力的丢失以及无效运作的政治系统。


China might well step in to fill that vacuum, but that is quite different from being able to elbow America aside.	中国很有可能会填补这一真空，但我们并不能说是它压倒了美国。


Who Will Rescue the Rest of Us?	谁又来拯救我们？


SYDNEY – The rescue of the 33 Chilean miners, from what was feared would be their tomb, gave the world something to cheer about.	发自悉尼——33名智利矿工的成功脱险无疑值得全世界为之欢欣鼓舞。


Hope has not, after all, become a redundant virtue in the twenty-first century.	这毕竟说明希望这玩意儿还是存在于21世纪的。


But, looking around us today, there do not seem to be many reasons for optimism elsewhere.	但除此之外，我们身边已经没有多少能带来希望的事物了。


The world lurches towards a currency war, or even towards trade protectionism, threatening to destroy jobs and growth.	当今世界，货币战争一触即发，贸易保护主义再度抬头，两者都是拉低就业破坏增长的危险因子。


America’s recovery from recession is anemic and largely jobless.	美国衰退后的复苏进程十分疲软，并伴随着大量的失业。


China, meanwhile, with foreign reserves worth half its total output, denies with a straight face that it is deliberately manipulating the value of the renminbi. So its trade surplus continues to soar at the expense of other countries.	而中国这个外汇储备相当于其出口总额的一半的国家则不敢直面自己一直刻意操纵人民币汇率的现实，并继续把自己的贸易顺差建立在他国的痛苦之上。


Nor does a global solution to the challenge of climate change appear any closer.	此外，应对气候变迁的全球共识方案仍遥遥无期。


A few weeks of rain in Australia has emboldened those who think that global warming is a gigantic hoax perpetrated by the United Nations or conspiring scientists or maybe men from Mars.	澳大利亚连续数周的降雨更让人们怀疑，所谓的全球变暖，只不过是联合国或那些心怀不轨的科学家，甚至是火星人杜撰出来的大骗局罢了。


The war in Afghanistan bleeds more lives and treasure into the inhospitable terrain of that sad land, with little immediate chance of whatever might constitute sufficient success to allow America and its allies to quit. And the problems of Pakistan fester next door.	在阿富汗战场，大量的生命和财富湮灭在滚滚黄沙之中，却无法为美国及其盟友换来哪怕一丁点的胜利，好让他们能给自己找一个体面脱身的理由，而邻国巴基斯坦的问题也在日渐恶化。


In Palestine, Israeli colonies continue to grow with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignoring Washington’s efforts to secure traction for the peace process.	在巴勒斯坦，以色列总理内塔尼亚胡置华盛顿当局推动中东平和进程的决心于不顾，犹太人定居点不断在巴勒斯坦的土地上蚕食蔓延。


Europeans continue to look inward, obsessed with their own problems of declining competitiveness and how to pay for entitlements that they have come to regard as theirs by right.	而欧盟也自顾不暇，因为它们既头痛于如何处理竞争力下降的问题，又为如何支付那些人们自以为应得的福利而苦恼。


With the gap between the world’s rich and poor increasing, the impoverished South seeks a home or a job in the developed North.	随着世界贫富差距逐渐扩大，贫穷的南半球人民开始去富裕的北半球寻找家园和工作。


Legal and illegal migration triggers far-right hostility in countries that customarily brag about their commitment to civil liberties.	但在那些平时吹嘘自己奉行公民自由的国家里，无论是合法还是非法的移民都激起了极右势力的敌意。


So, as Lenin once asked, what is to be done?	事到如今，正如列宁曾经问过的：“该怎么办呢？ ”


The world obviously needs political leadership of the highest quality to see us through.	很明显，我们需要最优秀的政治领袖来带领众人度过难关。


We need the sort of courage that was the hallmark of Margaret Thatcher. We need Bill Clinton’s extraordinary ability to spin a political narrative that enabled voters to identify their own interests with his goals.	我们需要撒切尔夫人那样的勇气，需要比尔·克林顿那种能引导选民把自身利益与政治家目标融为一体的超凡政治游说力。


We require Helmut Kohl’s understanding of the need to identify the big decisions in politics, and to get those decisions right.	我们要德国前总理科尔这样的人物，不但能认识到锁定关键政治决策的紧迫性，还能将这些决策很好地落实下来。


We need leaders with sufficient mastery of detail, like China’s last premier Zhu Rongji, who can not only tell us how they will get us from A to Z, but can actually lead us from A to B.	我们还需要如中国前总理朱镕基这样对全局了如指掌的领袖，不但能告诉我们起点和终点在哪里，还能具体带领我们一步一步向目标迈进。


Looking around, leaders like this seem to be an extinct species.	放眼全球，这样的领袖真的是凤毛麟角。


Or, if they exist at all, they appear to be constrained by dysfunctional political systems. Their ability to act is limited by their political environment.	即便有这样的人，也被机能失调的政治制度限制着，他们的行动能力也被身处的政治环境所制约着，无法动弹。


The best example is US President Barack Obama, on whom so many hopes rested – probably too many for any one leader.	美国总统奥巴马就是一个很好的例子，在他身上承载着如此多的希望，已经超出了任何一个领袖的承受能力了。


Obama inherited messy and expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and an economy in meltdown.	奥巴马接过了阿富汗和伊拉克这两个肮脏而昂贵的烂摊子，同时还得面对近乎崩溃的国内经济。


His attempts to revive the economy have inevitably driven up the deficit.	为了挽救经济，他无可避免地要扩大财政赤字。


But no recovery in the labor or housing markets has yet materialized.	但就业和住房市场的复苏却并未如期出现。


Now Obama faces defeat in the mid-term elections at the hands of Republicans whose past policies created many of the problems that weigh him down today.	如今奥巴马眼看要在中期选举中败于共和党之手，而事实上，正是共和党人此前制造的众多麻烦令奥巴马落到了这般田地。


They want less government, lower taxes, and a smaller deficit, a combination to be achieved seemingly without pain.	这些共和党人宣布要压缩政府规模，要降低税收，要减少财政赤字——仿佛这一切都无须付出任何代价唾手可得一样。


This nonsense on stilts is articulated by some zany candidates who enjoy the support of the Tea Party, a reference not to the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, which would be fitting, but to the Bostonians who rebelled against colonial Britain’s imposition of taxes in the eighteenth century.	这种愚蠢的政治表演已经为成为了某些脑残候选人的拿手好戏，而背后支持他们的则是“茶党（Tea Party）”——我说的是18世纪反抗英国征收税款的那批波士顿民众，而不是电影《爱丽丝梦游仙境》里与男主角“疯帽子”共进下午茶的那帮疯子，不过这个解释似乎更适合这些政治家。


The rest of the world needs a strong, self-confident, and decisive America.	世界需要一个强大，自信且果断的美国。


But America’s political system is about to deliver a balance of power in Washington that is likely to produce stalemate and paralysis.	但美国的政治体制的核心却使华盛顿内部的权力相互制衡，并因此导致了政治僵局和瘫痪。


In Europe, meanwhile, many of our problems are exemplified by what is happening in France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempt to recognize demographic and fiscal reality by raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 provoked a wave of strikes and stormy protests from workers and students.	此外，欧洲的许多问题都因法国国内的混乱而被放大��——萨科齐总统被迫承认人口和财政的压力，他试图把退休年龄从60岁延迟到62岁的计划激起了一浪接一浪的罢工，以及工人学生暴风骤雨般的游行示威。


Is there not something deeply depressing about 18-year-olds demonstrating about the retirement age?	我很难明白，在退休年龄这个问题上，究竟是什么深深挫伤了这帮18岁示威者幼小的心灵？


How on earth did they acquire such a statist and conservative mind-set?	他们又是在哪里养成了如此僵化和保守的思维呢？


Perhaps, then, Asia is the answer.	也许，问题的答案在亚洲。


Perhaps the Singapore-based strategist Kishore Mahbubani is correct to write off the West and tell us that the future lies in his own continent.	也许新加坡战略家马凯硕说得对，西方已经没落，世界的未来在亚洲。


The evidence on that point is mixed.	这个观点的论据是复杂多样的。


India is a glorious democracy with an economically literate government and pockets of real economic achievement.	印度是一个伟大的民主国家，其政府深谙经济理论，也取得了一定的经济建设成果。


But the fiasco in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games showcased some of India’s problems, not least deep corruption and inadequate infrastructure.	但英联邦运动会的一地鸡毛也折射出印度的一些问题，且不仅仅是深层次的腐败和落后的基础设施而已。


If those problems were sorted out, India’s growth rate would outstrip China’s.	如果这些问题都解决了，印度的增长率将超过中国。


And what of the booming Middle Kingdom?	至于蓬勃发展的“中央帝国”又怎么样呢？


In Brussels the other day, Premier Wen Jiabao scolded European leaders for pressing for the renminbi’s revaluation.	前几天在布鲁塞尔，温家宝总理指责欧洲各国领导人逼迫人民币升值。


Did they not understand, he argued, that this would lead to factory closures and social turbulence in China?	他说，难道这些欧洲人不知道，人民币升值将导致中国国内大量工厂倒闭和社会动荡吗？


Elsewhere, of course, this sort of turmoil has democratic safety valves.	当然，在其他地方，这种混乱自有民主的安全阀来排泄掉。


It is more than odd to argue that the rest of the world has to cope with a built-in advantage for China’s exporters because its authoritarian political system cannot cope with any change.	但让人无比讶异的是：世界其他国家之所以必须忍受中国出口商这种内生性优势，原来就是因为该国的独裁政治体制无法承受任何波动。


No wonder the impressive premier is thought to favor some political loosening.	难怪这位给人印象深刻的总理似乎也打算给国内政治松绑了。


From East to West, politics seems to be operating in a manner that is, to be diplomatic, sub-optimal.	从东方到西方，政治似乎都在以某种妥协的次优方式在运作。


Then again, maybe we’re lucky that things aren’t worse.	可能我们也该为事情没有继续恶化而暗自庆幸了。


The Chilean miners survived against the odds, so perhaps the rest of us will somehow get by as well.	智利矿工在九死一生的情况下重见天日，因此我们或许也能挺过来的。


But who, exactly, is responsible for the rescue operation?	但问题是，究竟谁才能承担起拯救我们的重任呢？


Who Will Run the World?	何人统领世界？


SINGAPORE – Barack Obama’s election comes at a moment when a new bit of conventional wisdom is congealing.	新加坡--奥巴马当选总统正值新的传统智慧凝固之际。


It concerns the end of America’s global dominance.	这事关美国全球统领地位的终结。


True, freewheeling American-style capitalism has not acquitted itself proudly of late.	的确，美国式自由放任的资本主义最近乏善可陈。


And America’s military superiority has not proved all that useful in accomplishing American ends.	而美国军事优势在实现美国的目标上也并不奏效。


But who may pick up the slack in providing global leadership?	但是谁又会在提供全球领导地位上收拾局面呢？


The uncomfortable answer that Obama is likely to confront is this: nobody.	奥巴马有可能面对的并不令人愉乐的答案是：谁也不行。


America may be damaged, but no replacement is on offer.	美国或许受到了伤害，但是还没有出现替代国家。


Europe is self-absorbed, focused on creating whatever kind of entity it ends up deciding to be.	欧洲关注自我，只是在建立随便它打算要的实体。


China’s standard response to any suggestion that it exercise global leadership is to hide beneath its vast internal agenda and plead poverty.	中国对任何其实施全球领导地位建议的标准回复就是躲在国内问题背后并且宣称自己的贫困问题。


No other country comes close to having either the capacity or the ambition.	没有任何国家接近于拥有能力或者雄心。


In the face of the familiar litany of desperate global problems – not just financial instability, but also climate change, energy insecurity, potential pandemics, terrorism, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction – the prospect of a rudderless world is more than alarming.	人们面对熟悉的一大堆急迫的全球性问题，不仅是金融不稳定，而且还包括气候变化、能源不安全、潜在的传染病、恐怖主义以及大规模杀伤性武器的扩散。 世界群龙无首的局面极为令人担忧。


What is to be done?	应该做些什么？


And by whom?	由谁来做呢？


Given that the United States has not been playing much of a leadership role on many of these issues recently, it is worth taking a look at what happens when no one country exercises effective leadership.	鉴于美国最近在这些问题上并未发挥多大的领导作用，现在就值得观察一下在没有任何一个国家实施有效领导作用之际局面会是如何。


One set of answers might seem apparent from the collapse of international trade negotiations and the unraveling international system to control the spread of nuclear weapons.	其中一套答案从国际贸易谈判破裂以及国际体系无力制止核武器扩散来看就十分明显。


Things can certainly get grim.	事情会变得十分严峻。


But that is not the whole story.	但是这还不是问题的全部。


To see why, consider climate change.	要知道为什么，可以看一看气候变化问题。


It is now clear that avoiding catastrophic climate change requires dramatic and rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, cuts that would lower annual emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.	现在清楚的是，为了避免灾难性的气候变化就要求迅速大幅度降低温室气体排放，年度排放水平必须在2050年的时候低于1990年80%的水平。


Yet emissions are not just rising, but accelerating.	但是排放量不仅还在上升，而且在加速。


The coming recession may stem their growth temporarily, but only slightly.	即将而来的经济衰退也许能够暂时阻止其增长，但是程度轻微。


The necessary reductions imply a rapid and radical transformation of industrial, energy, and land-use systems around the world.	必要的削减要求全球工业、能源以及土地使用体系发生迅速巨大的转变。


What are governments doing about this?	各国政府如何从事这一工作呢？


Supposedly, by December 2009 they will agree on a new treaty to set limits on emissions.	它们理应在2009年12月达成新的协议来限制排放。


But the prospects that an agreement will be reached in Copenhagen in December 2009 are close to nil.	但是这一协议能够在2009年12月在哥本哈根达成的前景几乎是零。


The new Obama administration will have only a few months to develop meaningful proposals that can win domestic support, and will be preoccupied with the aftermath of the current financial debacle and the Iraq war.	奥巴马政府只有几个月的时间制定有意义的、可以赢得国内支持的建议，而且该政府将会集中经理处理当前金融危机和伊拉克战争的后果。


Europe is pushing for ambitious targets but is having trouble with its own vested interests.	欧洲正在推动雄心勃勃的目标但是在自身既得利益上存在麻烦。


The large emerging countries, although they will suffer disproportionately from wilder weather and rising sea levels, show little interest in picking up the slack.	新兴的大国尽管更多地承受气候反复无常和海平面升高之苦，但是却没有兴趣收拾残局。


Negotiation watchers term the current American-Chinese dance of mutual blame a suicide pact.	观察谈判的人士把美中之间相互指责的游戏称为自杀协议。


In short, the process is a mess.	简而言之，整个进程就是混乱不堪。


This is hardly surprising.	这并不奇怪。


An inter-governmental system that falls apart under the challenges of trade negotiations and proliferation threats is unlikely to master the deep complexity and multitudinous vested interests that the issue of climate change entails.	政府间体系在贸易谈判以及武器扩散的挑战之下瓦解，就难以掌握气候变化问题所带来的千头万绪和众多既得利益。


Traditional diplomacy will at best devise a face-saving but meaningless accord next year.	传统外交明年最多可以创造不丢面子但是没有意义的协议。


In many areas, frustration with inter-governmental intransigence and incompetence has sparked extraordinary innovation by non-governmental organizations, corporations, and ordinary people.	在许多领域，人们对政府间互不妥协以及难以胜任感到沮丧，从而激发了非政府组织、公司以及普通民众的特殊创新。


Private organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council provide and, increasingly, implement environmental standards where inter-governmental action has failed.	例如森林管理委员会以及海运管理委员会等私有组织提供了政府间行动所没有达到的环境标准并且正在越发实施这些标准。


Private actors from foundations to pharmaceutical corporations to NGOs are actively experimenting with alternative ways to tackle transnational health challenges.	基金会、制药公司以及非政府组织等私有组织正在积极地试验替代性方式来处理跨国界的医疗挑战。


Often governments are part of these experiments – but they are not necessarily the drivers, and progress does not depend on signing treaties.	各国政府通常参与这些试验，但是它们并非一定是推动者，而且进步也并不取决于签署协议。


Indeed, there are many ways to put matters on the global agenda, as shown by Bono’s campaigns on African development and Al Gore’s on climate change.	确实，有许多办法把问题放到全球议题上。 波诺推动非洲发展以及戈尔推动气候变化问题都证明了这一点。


Agreements about how to make things better already frequently include NGOs and corporations in various capacities – and sometimes exclude governments altogether.	有关改进已经经常包括不同身份的非政府组织和公司，有时候干脆就排除政府在外。


Private groups using everything from satellite imagery (as in forestry) to the unofficial equivalent of on-site inspections (as in human rights) monitor who is abiding by – or violating – what standard of behavior.	私有组织利用一切手段，从森林卫星图像到人权问题上相当于非正式的现场视察谁在遵守或者违反行为标准。


While enforcement in the coercive sense remains the domain of states, coercive enforcement is rare even when it comes to inter-governmental agreements.	尽管使用强迫手段实施还是国家的范围，但是即使在政府间协议上强迫实施也是极为少见的。


Whether countries abide by agreements has far more to do with international processes of persuasion, socialization, and capacity-building – and those can be done by anyone with a good argument.	各国是否遵守协议更为主要地是在于国际间劝说、交际以及能力建设的进程，而这些只要有好的论点任何人都可以做到。


The big question today is whether all these alternative approaches can add up to more than a bit of desperate tinkering around the edges.	如今的大问题是，这些替代性手段是否可以要比绝望地在边缘运作要有效。


Standard international-relations thinking does not even entertain the question, and those conventional ways of seeing the world have blinded us to looking at this crucial question.	标准的国际关系思维甚至并不考虑这一问题，而传统观察世界的方法阻碍我们看到这一关键问题所在。


As a result, we do not yet know the answer.	结果，我们还不知道答案。


Data remain scarce.	数据还是稀少。


There are hundreds of global public-private partnerships working on various global ills – but few have been examined to see what good they do.	全世界有数以百计的公私伙伴组织在处理解决不同的全球性难题，但是人们很少检查它们做了那些好事。


The mishmash of initiatives, actors, campaigns, and appeals creates opportunities for major progress – and mass confusion.	各种倡议、参与者、运动以及申诉给重大进展和大范围混乱提供了机会。


If there is to be real progress toward more effective and efficient global governance that can address the unprecedented challenges posed by climate change and the rest of the global agenda, we must do much more than look for an easy replacement for American hegemony.	气候变化以及其他全球性议题带来了前所未有的挑战。 要想在处理这些挑战的更为有效和效力的全球管理上实现真正的进步，我们还必须不能停留在简单地寻求替换美国霸权上。


We must figure out how to make sense of this enormous diversity of ways of saving the world.	我们必须找到方式来理解如此众多的拯救世界的多样途经。


Citizen Bezos?	公民贝索斯？


NEW YORK – My very first serious job was as a fact-checker for Forbes magazine (now mostly a laissez-faire collection of blogs).	纽约——我的第一份工作是在《福布斯》杂志（现已基本成为放任自流的博客大杂烩）负责事实审核。


I consider fact-checkers to be the altar boys of journalism.	我认为事实审核员是新闻业的忠实侍者。


And, despite having left the church, I still feel a profound reverence for the holy truth.	尽管已离开教堂，我仍然敬畏神圣的真理。


So, in most of the discussion about business models occasioned by the sale of the Washington Post to Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the values that I have held dear are being tarnished.	因此，在亚马逊创始人兼首席执行官杰夫·贝索斯收购《华盛顿邮报》引发的商业模式大讨论中，我所珍视的价值观遭到了践踏。


How so?	为什么这么说？


Even reputable fact-checkers disagree on the origin of the famous admonition to journalists: “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable!”	就连享有盛誉的事实审核员也无法就“给苦难者以慰藉、给舒适者以折磨！ ”这条知名记者箴言的起源达成一致。


(They even disagree on whether it was first directed at preachers or at newsmen).	（他们甚至无法确定这句话最早是用来形容牧师还是新闻记者）。


In any case, journalism is one business in which the customer is not always right.	但无论如何，新闻行业的客户并不总是正确的。


The challenge that business considerations pose to journalism – both news and commentary providers – takes the form of three separate temptations: to slant the news to please readers rather than inform them, and thus attract advertisers; to slant the news to please advertisers directly; and to slant the news to advance owners’ political or commercial interests.	商业因素给包括新闻及评论机构在内的新闻业以诱惑的形式带来三重挑战：歪曲新闻以取悦而不是客观地告知读者，并以此来吸引广告客户； 歪曲新闻直接吸引广告客户；


These temptations have always been present, but “hard” news could be supported by constituency-pleasing sections, advertiser-pleasing features and product reviews, news-you-can-use sections replete with ads for related goods, and, of course, the classified ads.	歪曲新闻为所有者的政治或商业利益服务。 上述诱惑始终存在，但“重大”新闻背后其实还可以掺杂取悦顾客的报导、取悦广告商的特写和产品评述，以及充斥着相关产品、当然还有分类广告的实用新闻栏目。


Today, the church of newspaper journalism is fragmenting.	今天新闻的神圣殿堂正在土崩瓦解。


Brands and advertisers can speak directly to customers, and markets no longer need the convening power of a newspaper to match buyers and sellers (the purpose of classified ads).	品牌和广告商可以直接与客户沟通，市场也不再需要媒体扮演将买卖双方匹配在一起（也是分类广告的目的）的角色。


Investigative journalism and serious commentary, like religion, do not have a profit model.	像宗教一样，新闻调查和严肃评论本身并不具备盈利的模式。


They serve a higher purpose (although they can be and often are corrupted or twisted for bad ends).	它们为更高的目标服务（虽然往往遭到扭曲或破坏，为不可告人的目标提供服务）。


So, should we welcome Bezos’s entry into this world?	那么，我们是否应当欢迎贝索斯进入新闻行业？


Many commentators expect him to digitize-monetize-revolutionize the Post (whatever that means).	许多评论家预测他将实现《华盛顿邮报》的数字化、货币化及改革化（无论这几个词究竟是什么意思）。


But I think he bought it for a different purpose.	但我认为其收购背后另有目标。


He is a canny businessman – that much is clear.	他是一位精明的商人——这一点是毋庸置疑的。


He runs Amazon tightly and for the long term; it generates huge amounts of cash, which it reinvests on behalf of all of its shareholders.	他长期在亚马逊开展严密的经营活动； 后者为他带来巨额现金，他又代表全体股东进行再投资操作。


But it is Bezos personally, not Amazon, who bought the Post.	但收购《邮报》的是贝索斯个人，而不是亚马逊这家企业。


This is a man who is a generous donor to the Long Now Foundation (I am on its board) and who personally founded and owns a rocket company, Blue Origin (I am on the board of a competing company called XCOR).	贝索斯是今日永存基金会（我也是该基金会的董事成员）慷慨的捐助者，其个人还创办并且拥有一家叫蓝源（Blue Origin）的火箭公司（而我则是其竞争对手XCOR公司的董事）。


I think – I hope! – that Bezos will make the proper distinctions.	我认为——我希望！ 贝索斯能够进行适当的区隔。


He understands the difference between media (yet another of his personal investments is the Web site Business Insider) and journalism.	他理解媒体和新闻之间的区别（但商业内幕网站是他的另外一项个人投资）。


In our market-driven times, we tend to think about the price of everything and the value of nothing, as Oscar Wilde put it.	恰如奥斯卡·王尔德所说，在以市场为导向的年代，价格而非价值是我们考虑的目标。


But we are also discovering behavioral economics – the human quirks and emotional urges that drive people to do things that make little economic sense.	但我们也见证了行为经济学——人类的怪癖和情绪冲动促使人们做出没有经济意义的决策。


The best joke of all – that Bezos bought the Post by mistake through an errant one-click purchase (a capability patented by Amazon) – has a ring of truth to it.	其中最离谱的笑话——贝索斯因为点错鼠标而错误地一键买入（这是亚马逊一项曾获专利的技术）《华盛顿邮报》多少有一点现实的味道。


The purchase was not an economically motivated decision, though it was no mistake.	虽然算不上是一次错误，但也不是一次有意义的经济收购。


There probably is not a sustainable business model for newspapers like the Post.	《邮报》这样的报纸或许没有可持续的经营模式。


But I do think there is sustainable value of the kind that no corporation or financially driven investor could ever justify.	但我的确认为企业或金融投资者永远无法理解的长期价值是切实存在的。


Bezos’s move is not like the recent purchases of Newsweek, where there was an illusion of turning it around, or the Boston Globe, bought by John Henry, who owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team and Liverpool Football Club.	贝索斯此举不同于此前抱着扭亏为盈的幻想对于《新闻周刊》的收购。 它也不同于约翰·亨利收购《波士顿环球报》，后者已经将波士顿红袜队和利物浦足球俱乐部的所有权收入囊中。


Perhaps the most interesting example is Rupert Murdoch – the son of an Australian news baron – who recently split his family-controlled News Corporation, into the TV and film company 21st Century Fox and the less profitable new News Corp, which retains the news and publishing operations.	最耐人寻味的例子也许是澳大利亚新闻巨头的儿子鲁珀特·默多克，默多克不久前将其家族控制的新闻集团一分为二，形成了21世纪福克斯电视电影公司和保留新闻出版业务的利润不那么丰厚的新闻集团两块业务。


Although Murdoch remains chairman of both, everyone expects him to focus more on the news business.	尽管默多克身兼这两个集团的董事长，但所有人都预料他会更专注于新闻业务。


That portfolio includes both customer-pleasing tabloids with a troubled history of pandering, spying, and bribing, and the venerable journalism of the Wall Street Journal’s news pages – a contradiction that splitting the parent has not resolved.	上述业务包括曾以刺探收买等低俗手段迎合读者的小报和受人尊敬的《华尔街日报》新闻版——分拆母公司并没有解决这其中的冲突。


And, finally, there is Project Syndicate itself (which publishes this column).	最后还要谈到发布这篇专栏文章的Project Syndicate本身。


Originally funded by yet another billionaire, George Soros, Project Syndicate operates independently to provide hard-to-monetize informed opinion and analysis with nary an “advertorial” or product review in sight.	Project Syndicate集团最初由另外一名亿万富翁乔治·索罗斯赞助，现在独立运营发表鲜有经济效益的观点和分析文章（在可以预见的未来既没���软广告也没有产品评述）。


One way to think about the best business model for journalism is to think about the best business model for food.	思考新闻业最佳商业模式可以借鉴食品业的经验。


Is it an all-you-can-eat buffet?	究竟你想经营随意取用的自助餐？


A tony à la carte sanctuary with great wines that generate most of the profit?	以高档红酒为卖点的时尚豪华的点餐服务？


A franchise with pre-cooked dishes thawed and heated in huge ovens?	还是用大型烤箱加热事先煮熟并解冻的各色菜肴？


All can work – but only with good management.	任何一种形式都可以赚钱，问题是管理必须跟得上。


But there is also the philanthropic soup kitchen – in the Post’s case, a high-end one, delivering nutritious food in a world in which restaurants now give away less-healthy food, because they use it to sell other goods.	但还有一种情况是爱心厨房——具体到《华盛顿邮报》，这家高端爱心厨房在餐馆普遍提供垃圾食品（因为他们把其他产品与垃圾食品捆绑销售）的今天为人们提供营养丰富的菜肴。


In the end, I think Bezos wants less to own the Post than to set it free, for at least a generation or two.	最后，我认为贝索斯与其想拥有《华盛顿邮报》还不如说想在至少一两代人的时间里给它以自由。


As Bezos wrote in a memo to the staff: “The values of the Post do not need changing.	正如贝索斯在给员工的一份备忘录中所写的那样：“《华盛顿邮报》的价值观不需要变化。


The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.	这份报纸不会忠实于其所有者的私利，而将继续忠实于它的读者。


We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads....”	我们将继续追寻真理到天涯海角…”。


If I am wrong, I hope this commentary will help to afflict him into righteousness!	如果我说错了，希望这篇评论能让他认识到真理的价值！ ”


Why America Must Not Re-elect President Bush	为什么美国不该再选乔治·布什当总统


I have never been heavily involved in partisan politics, but these are not normal times.	我从来没热衷参与过党派政治，但现在已经是非正常时期了。


President George W. Bush is endangering the United States and the world's safety while undermining American values.	乔治·W·布什总统正在把美国和世界的安全拖入险境，同时也损害了美国信奉的价值观。


For opposing him, I have been demonized by the Bush campaign.	迫于布什班子的种种丑行，我不得不站出来反对他。


President Bush ran in 2000 on a platform promising a "humble" foreign policy.	2000年布什竞选时曾承诺实行"温和"的外交政策。


If re-elected, the Bush doctrine of preemptive action - and the invasion of Iraq - will be endorsed, and the world will have to live with the consequences.	如果再次当选，布什的霸权信条－和侵略伊拉克的行径－将会得到承认，而全世界都不得不为此付出惨重代价。


By repudiating Bush's policies at the polls, America will have a chance to regain the respect and support of the world.	通过在全民投票中批判布什的政策，美国将有机会重新赢得世界的尊敬与支持。


The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, required a strong response.	2001年9月11日的恐怖袭击迫使我们做出强烈的反应。


But they also led to suspension of the critical process so essential to a democracy - a full and fair discussion of the issues.	但这也导致了关键民主程序的缺失－没有人就此进行过全面、公正的探讨。


Bush silenced criticism by calling it unpatriotic.	所有批评意见都被布什贴上了不爱国的标签并加以压制。


For 18 months after 9/11, he managed to suppress all dissent. That is how he led America in the wrong direction.	9/11以后长达18个月，他成功地压制了所有的不同意见，他就是这样把美国引入了歧途。


In fact, Bush played right into the hands of Osama bin Laden.	实际上，布什此举正中奥萨马·本·拉登的下怀。


Afghanistan's invasion was justified: that was where bin Laden lived and al Qaeda had its training camps. Invading Iraq was not.	美国有理由入侵阿富汗：因为那里是本·拉登的驻地，也是基地组织的训练营，但入侵伊拉克却站不住脚。


It was Bush's unintended gift to bin Laden.	这是布什送给本·拉登的一份意外礼物。


Immediately after 9/11, there was a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy for America worldwide. It has given way to widespread resentment.	9/11事件刚结束时，全世界都弥漫着对美国自发的同情，现在却统统变成了憎恨。


There are many more people willing to risk their lives to kill Americans than there were on September 11.	与9月11日前相比，有更多的人愿意冒着生命的危险去刺杀美国人。


Bush likes to insist that terrorists hate Americans for what they are - a freedom loving people - not what they do.	布什总喜欢强调恐怖份子仇恨美国是因为我们之为美国－因为我们拥有热爱自由的人民，他却从未提及这种仇恨是来自我们的所作所为。


But war and occupation create innocent victims.	可是战争和占领会让无辜群众成为牺牲品。


We count the body bags of American soldiers - over 1,000 in Iraq.	让我们数一数美国士兵在伊拉克的尸骨－超过1000人已经在伊拉克丧失了生命。


The wider world also counts the Iraqis who get killed daily, perhaps 20 times more.	别的国家还在计算每天死了多少伊拉克人，这个数字几乎是美国伤亡的20倍。


Nor was the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison the work of a few bad apples. It was part of a system of dealing with prisoners put in place by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.	阿布格莱布监狱的虐囚行为也绝非少数害群之马的个别行为，而是国防部长唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德对待犯人政策的组成部分。


Public opinion condemns America worldwide, and our troops in Iraq are paying the price.	所有的世界舆论都在谴责美国，而我们驻伊拉克的军队在为此付出代价。


Bush convinced people that he is good for American security by playing on the fears generated by the 9/11 attacks.	布什利用9/11恐怖袭击后的恐惧，成功地说服了人们他是美国安全的守护神。


At a time of peril, people rally around the flag, and Bush exploited this by fostering a sense of danger.	在危机时刻，人们集结在共同的旗帜下，而布什通过让他们相信身处险境而充分利用了这种大敌当前的团结。


His campaign assumes that people do not really care about the truth and will believe almost anything if it is repeated often enough.	这种策略的前提是人们毫不看重事实，而会相信反复灌输给他们的一切思想。


There must be something wrong with Americans if we fall for it.	如果我们真的落入了这个陷阱，那么美国人一定有什么地方出了问题。


For instance, some 40% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was connected with 9/11, although the 9/11 Commission - set up by Bush and chaired by a Republican - definitively established that no such connection existed.	举个例子，40%左右的美国人到现在仍然相信，萨达姆·侯赛因与9/11事件脱不了干系，尽管由布什组建、并由民主党人任主席的9/11委员会已经做出了结论：这种所谓的联系纯属子虚乌有。


I want to shout: "Wake up America.	我想大声疾呼："美国人醒醒吧。


Don't you realize we are being misled?"	难道你们还没发现，我们正在被人所误导？ "


The war in Iraq was misconceived from start to finish - if it has a finish.	伊拉克战争从头到尾都是个骗局－如果它还能有个"结尾"。


It is a war of choice, not necessity.	这是我们主动挑起的战争，而不是被迫的还击。


Moreover, America went to war on false pretenses.	不仅如此，美国人发动战争的借口并不存在。


Weapons of mass destruction could not be found, and the connection with al Qaeda could not be established.	大规模杀伤性武器根本没有找到，和基地组织的联系也根本得不到证实。


Bush then claimed that America went to war to liberate Iraq.	于是布什又声称美国发动战争是为了解放伊拉克。


But democracy cannot be imposed by force.	但真正的民主绝不可能来自武力。


Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, and Iraqis - and the world - can rejoice in being rid of him.	萨达姆·侯赛因是独裁者，伊拉克和整个世界都会为他的倒台欢呼雀跃。


But America had an obligation to maintain law and order; instead, we stood idly by while Baghdad and other cities were ransacked.	美国有义务维护法律和秩序，但恰恰相反，当巴格达和其它城��被洗劫一空时，我们却始终坐视不管。


If we had cared about the Iraqi people, we should have had more troops available for the occupation.	如果我们真的在意伊拉克人民，就应该派更多的军队维持秩序。


We should have provided protection not only for the oil ministry, but also other ministries, museums, and hospitals.	我们应该保护的不仅是石油部，还有其它政府部门、博物馆和医院。


Worse still, when American soldiers encountered resistance, they employed methods - invading homes and mistreating prisoners - that alienated and humiliated the population, generating resentment and rage.	更糟糕的是，美国士兵遇到抵抗时，他们选择了侵入民宅和虐待俘虏－这种做法使伊拉克人蒙受了耻辱，使他们最终丧失了信心，并激发了他们的愤怒与怨恨。


The Bush administration's flip-flops and missteps are legion.	我们看到了太多的朝令夕改和决策失误。


First the Iraqi army was dissolved, then America tried to reconstitute it.	开始时伊拉克军队遭到解散，接着美国又试图重建。


First the US tried to eliminate the Baathists, then America turned to them for help.	起初美国想消灭叙利亚社会党，后来又转而寻求他们的帮助。


When the insurgency became intractable, America installed an Iraqi government. The man chosen to lead it was a protégé of the CIA with a reputation for being a strongman - a far cry from democracy.	当动荡局面演变得无法控制，美国又扶植了伊拉克政府，并把中央情报局的保护对象扶上了头把交椅，此人一贯有着铁腕的名声，这与民主要求可谓相去甚远。


Despite the Bush campaign's efforts at spin control, the situation in Iraq is dire.	尽管布什阵营绞尽脑汁想扭转颓势，但伊拉克局势仍旧危机重重。


Much of the western part of the country has been ceded to insurgents, the prospect of holding free and fair elections in January is fast receding, civil war looms.	那里西部的大片领土都落入了叛乱分子的控制，而1月举行自由公正选举的可能性几乎为零，内战更是一触即发。


Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to America as well, impairing its military power and undermining the morale of the armed forces.	布什的对伊战争也给美国造成了不可估量的损害，不仅削弱了我们的军力，也给部队的士气带来了沉重的打击。


Before the war, America could project overwhelming force. Not anymore.	对伊战争前，美国曾拥有压倒优势的军力，现在这已经不复存在。


Afghanistan is slipping from control.	阿富汗局势正在失控。


North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and other countries pursue nuclear programs with renewed vigor.	北朝鲜、伊朗、巴基斯坦和其它国家又鼓起勇气投入了核武器的研究。


The Bush administration can be criticized for many other policies, but none are as important as Iraq.	布什政府还有很多其它政策值得商榷，但没有一个像伊拉克这么严重。


The war has cost nearly $200 billion, and costs will continue to mount, because getting into Iraq was much easier than getting out will be.	战争耗费了近2000亿美元，这个数字还会继续上升，因为进入远比撤出更加容易。


Bush has been taunting John Kerry to explain how he would do things differently.	布什一直嘲笑约翰·凯利，让他说说能带来哪些变化。


Kerry has responded that he would have done everything differently, and that he would be in a better position to extricate us.	凯利的回答是，他的所有做法都会变化，他能够更好地解脱美国。


But it won't be easy for him, either, because America is caught in a quagmire.	但这对他来讲也并不容易，因为美国已经陷入了一个巨大的泥潭。


Top military and diplomatic experts desperately warned Bush not to invade Iraq. He ignored them.	军政两界的顶级专家拼命地告诫布什别侵入伊拉克，可他对这种警告充耳不闻。


He suppressed the critical process, arguing that any criticism of the Commander-in-Chief puts US troops at risk.	他压制批评意见，说任何对总司令的批评都会给美国军队带来危险。


But this is Bush's war, and he ought to be held responsible for it.	可这是布什的战争，他应该为此负责。


Americans should step back for a moment and ask: who got them into this mess?	美国人应该退一步思考并扪心自问：是谁把他们带到了目前的境地？


A moment's reflection should raise another question: does Bush's Texas swagger qualify him to remain America's Commander-in-Chief?	片刻的思考会引发另外一个疑问：布什的德克萨斯牛皮能不能使他继续留任美国的三军统帅？


Calling Off America’s Bombs	阻止美国的炸弹


NEW YORK – As the US Congress considers whether to authorize American military intervention in Syria, its members should bear in mind a basic truth: While Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has repeatedly used extreme violence to retain power, the United States – and other governments in the Middle East and Europe – share responsibility for turning Syria into a killing field.	纽约—在美国国会在考虑是否授权军事干预叙利亚，各位议员应该记住一个基本事实：叙利亚总统巴沙尔·阿萨德为了把持权力而一再使用极端暴力，但美国——以及其他中东和欧洲政府——也要为叙利亚变成屠杀场承担一定责任。


These governments, led by the US, have explicitly sought the violent overthrow of Assad.	这些政府在美国的领导下赤裸裸地寻求以暴力推翻巴沙尔。


Without their involvement, Assad’s regime would most likely have remained repressive; with their involvement, Syria has become a site of mass death and destruction.	没有它们的介入，巴沙尔政权极有可能仍然会采取高压政策； 有了它们的参与，叙利亚变成了大规模死亡和毁灭之地。


More than 100,000 people have died, and many of the world’s cultural and archaeological treasures have been demolished.	超过10万人已经丧生，大量世界文化和考古财富被摧毁。


Syria’s civil war has occurred in two phases.	叙利亚内战包括两个阶段。


The first phase, roughly from January 2011 until March 2012, was largely an internal affair.	第一阶段大概在2011年1月至2012年3月，这一阶段大体上是叙利亚内部事务。


When the Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia and Egypt in January 2011, protests erupted in Syria as well.	当阿拉伯之春于2011年1月在突尼斯和埃及爆发时，叙利亚也爆发了游行示威。


In addition to the usual grievances under a brutal regime, Syrians were reeling from a massive drought and soaring food prices.	除了常规的对暴政政权的仇恨外，叙利亚人还饱受大规模干旱和食品价格飙升的挤压。


The protests became a military rebellion when parts of the Syrian army broke with the regime and established the Free Syrian Army.	随着一部分叙利亚军队与政权决裂，成立自由叙利亚军（Free Syrian Army），游行示威演变成了军事起义。


Neighboring Turkey was probably the first outside country to support the rebellion on the ground, giving sanctuary to rebel forces along its border with Syria.	邻国土耳其可能是第一个从地面支持叛军的外国，它沿土叙边境为叛军提供庇护所。


Although the violence was escalating, the death toll was still in the thousands, not tens of thousands.	尽管暴力升级，但死亡人数仍只有几千人，而没有达到万人级别。


The second phase began when the US helped to organize a large group of countries to back the rebellion.	第二阶段始于美国帮助组织起一大群国家支持叛军。


At a meeting of foreign ministers in Istanbul on April 1, 2012, the US and other countries pledged active financial and logistical support for the Free Syrian Army.	在2012年4月1日举行的伊斯坦布尔外交部长会议上，美国和其他国家承诺为自由叙利亚军提供金融和物流支持。


Most important, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared: “We think Assad must go.”	最重要的是，时任美国国务卿希拉里·克林顿宣称“我们认为巴沙尔必须下台。 ”


That open-ended statement, without any clear means to achieve the goal that it announced, has done much to fuel military escalation and the rising death toll in Syria, while pushing the US repeatedly to defend its “credibility” against a line in the sand that it should not have drawn.	这一陈述颇为含糊，并没有给出实现这一目标的手段，结果导致了叙利亚军事冲突升级和死亡人数暴增，同时也给美国自己划了一条毫无必要的底线，使其不得不一再捍卫自己的“信誉”。


Then and now, the US has claimed to speak in the interest of the Syrian people.	从那时到现在，美国一直声称代表叙利亚人民的利益。


This is very doubtful.	这十分可疑。


The US views Syria mainly through the lens of Iran, seeking to depose Assad in order to deprive Iran’s leaders of an important ally in the region, one that borders Israel.	美国看待叙利亚的角度大体是站在伊朗问题的基础上，它之所以寻求推翻巴沙尔，是为了除掉伊朗领导人在中东的一个重要盟友，一个与以色列接壤的盟友。


The US-led effort in Syria is thus best understood as a proxy war with Iran – a cynical strategy that has contributed to the massive rise in violence.	于是，对美国领导的叙利亚任务的最合适的理解是，这是一场与伊朗的代理人战争——这一颇可质疑的战略导致了暴力的严重升级。


The US government’s misguided move from potential mediator and problem solver to active backer of the Syrian insurrection was, predictably, a terrible mistake.	美国政府从潜在的调停人和问题解决者变成了叙利亚暴动的积极支持者。 不难预测，这一是个严重的错误。


It put the US in effective opposition to the United Nations peace initiative then being led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose approach was to call for a ceasefire followed by a negotiated political transition.	这使美国事实上违反了由前秘书长科菲·安南领导的联合国维和措施。 安南的办法是呼吁停火，然后进行政治转型谈判。


The US preempted this process by backing the military rebellion and insisting on Assad’s immediate departure.	美国则操之过急，支持叛军并坚持巴沙尔必须立刻下台。


It is hard to understand this blunder.	美国的这一错误令人难以理解。


Even if the US ultimately sought to force Assad from office, its blunt action hardened Assad’s resistance, as well as that of his two allies in the UN Security Council, Russia and China.	即使美国的最终目的是迫使巴沙尔下台，其迫不及待的举动也会增加巴沙尔的抵抗，并且触犯其在联合国安理会的两大盟友俄罗斯和中国。


Aside from seeking to defend their own interests in the region, both countries understandably rejected the idea of US-led regime change in Syria.	不难理解，中俄两国除了寻求捍卫其自身在中东的利益外，还 否决了由美国领导叙利亚体制变革的方案。


Russia argued that America’s insistence on Assad’s immediate departure was an impediment to peace.	俄罗斯认为美国的坚持巴沙尔立刻下台是在阻止和平。


In this, Russia was right.	在这一点上，俄罗斯是正确的。


Indeed, Russia was playing a plausibly constructive role at the time, albeit one premised on Assad remaining in power for at least a transitional period, if not indefinitely.	事实上，当时俄罗斯所扮演的角色颇具建设性，尽管其先决条件是巴沙尔政权即使不能用就延续，至少在过渡期仍应该在台上。


Russia sought a pragmatic approach that would protect its commercial interests in Syria and its naval base at the port of Tartus, while bringing an end to the bloodletting.	俄罗斯追求的是一种务实方案，以保护其在叙利亚的商业利益和其在塔尔图斯港的军事基地，同时还能结束流血。


The Russians openly backed Annan’s peace initiative.	俄罗斯人公开支持安南的和平计划。


Yet, with the US and others financing the rebels, Russia (and Iran) supplied more – and more sophisticated – weapons to the regime.	但是，由于美国和其他国家为叛军提供金融支持，俄罗斯（和伊朗）向巴沙尔政权提供了更多、也更先进的武器。


Now, with the use of chemical weapons, probably by the Syrian government (and possibly by both sides), the US has again ratcheted up the stakes.	如今，化学武器的使用（可能是叙利亚政府，也可能是双方都用了）使得美国再次加大了赌注。


Bypassing the UN once again, the US is declaring its intention to intervene directly by bombing Syria, ostensibly to deter the future use of chemical weapons.	美国再次绕过联合国，宣布准备通过轰炸叙利亚直接进行干预——表面借口是为了阻止进一步使用化学武器。


America’s motivations are not entirely clear.	美国的动机并不十分明确。


Perhaps there is no underlying foreign-policy logic, but only carelessness.	也许其中并无外交政策基本逻辑，而只是疏忽。


If there is a kind of logic, however weak, it seems to revolve around Iran and Israel, rather than Syria per se.	如果有某种逻辑，那么不管多么弱，都必然是以伊朗和以色列而不是以叙利亚为核心的。


There are many dictatorships in the world that the US does not try to overthrow.	世界上有许多独裁体制美国都没有去试图推翻。


On the contrary, many of them are ostensibly America’s close allies.	相反，其中不少表面上还是美国的紧密盟友。


So why does the US continue to back a deadly rebellion in a civil war that is continuing to escalate dangerously, now to the point of chemical-weapons attacks?	因此美国为何要在正在继续危险发酵的内战中支持叛军，如今甚至找出了化学武器攻击的借口？


To put it simply, President Barack Obama’s administration has inherited the neoconservative philosophy of regime change in the Middle East.	简言之，总统奥巴马政府继承了针对中东政权变革的新保守主义思想。


The overriding idea is that the US and its close allies get to choose who governs in the region.	其最重要的出发点是美国及其紧密盟友来选择谁主导这一地区。


Assad must go not because he is authoritarian, but because he is allied with Iran, which, from the perspective of the US, Israel, Turkey, and several Gulf countries, makes him a regional threat.	巴沙尔之所以必须下台，不是因为他独裁，而是因为它与伊朗结盟，在美国、以色列、土耳其和一些海湾国家看来，这让巴沙尔成为了地区威胁。


In fact, the US has probably been lured into serving these countries’ own narrower interests, whether it be Israel’s unconvincing vision of its own security or the Sunni countries’ opposition to Shia Iran.	事实上，美国可能被这些国家自身的狭隘利益所利用，不管是以色列对其自身安全的无法令人信服的愿景还是逊尼派国家队什叶派伊朗的反对。


But, in the long term, US foreign policy divorced from international law cannot produce anything other than more war.	但是，从长期看，美国违背国际法的外交政策不可能产生除了更多战争之外的结果。


The US should reverse course.	美国需要转变方向。


A direct US attack on Syria without UN backing is far more likely to inflame the region than it is to resolve the crisis there – a point well appreciated in the United Kingdom, where Parliament bucked the government by rejecting British participation in a military strike.	在没有联合国的支持下直接对叙利亚进行打击极有可能点燃地区战火，而不是解决危机——英国充分认识到了这一点，其议会否决了政府关于英国参与军事打击的动议。


Instead, the US should provide evidence of the chemical attacks to the UN; call on the Security Council to condemn the perpetrators; and refer such violations to the International Criminal Court.	相反，美国应该把化学攻击的证据提供给联合国； 要求安理会谴责袭击者；


Moreover, the Obama administration should try to work with Russia and China to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention.	并将这些罪行诉诸国际刑事法庭。 此外，奥巴马政府应该试图与俄罗斯和中国合作强制执行化学武器公约。


If the US fails in this, while acting diplomatically and transparently (without a unilateral attack), Russia and China would find themselves globally isolated on this important issue.	如果美国已透明的外交手段这样做（而不是单方面打击）而遭到了失败，那么中俄两国会在这一重要问题上被全球所孤立。


More broadly, the US should stop using countries like Syria as proxies against Iran.	更广泛地说，美国应该停滞利用叙利亚等国家作为反对伊朗的代理。


Withdrawal of US financial and logistical support for the rebellion, and calling on others to do the same, would not address Syria’s authoritarianism or resolve America’s issues with Iran, but it would stop or greatly reduce the large-scale killing and destruction in Syria itself.	撤回美国对叛军的金融和物流支持、呼吁其他国也这样做无法解决叙利亚的独裁主义或解决美国与伊朗的问题，但能停止或极大地减少叙利亚本国的大规模杀伤和破坏。


It would also enable the UN peace process to resume, this time with the US and Russia working together to restrain violence, keep Al Qaeda at bay (a shared interest), and find a longer-term pragmatic solution to Syria’s deep domestic divisions.	美国还可以重启联合国和平进程，由美国和俄罗斯携手阻止暴力、防范基地组织（符合两国共同利益）并寻找叙利亚深刻国内分歧的长期务实解决方案。


And the search for a US modus vivendi with Iran – where a new president suggests a change of course on foreign policy – could be revived.	此外，美国还应该重新开始寻找针对伊朗的权宜之计——伊朗新总统的上任可能意味着外交政策的转变。


It is time for the US to help stop the killing in Syria.	美国应该帮助停滞叙利亚的杀戮。


That means abandoning the fantasy that it can or should determine who rules in the Middle East.	这意味着放弃它能够或应该决定谁主宰中东的幻想。


Diplomacy and Double Standards	外交和双重标准


CANBERRA – When does acceptable diplomatic caution and realism become indefensible abdication of moral standards?	堪培拉—可接受的外交警告和现实主义何时变成了站不住脚的不顾道德标准？


Not everyone on the foreign-policy frontline cares, but those who do often face deeply uncomfortable choices.	并非所有外交界人士都在乎这一点，但在乎这一点的，通常要面临令人极度不安的选择。


Negotiating a life-saving peace may mean giving amnesty to the murderously guilty.	谈判救命的和平可能意味着给予罪大恶极者赦免。


Living with tyranny might be less life-threatening than embracing anarchy.	生活在暴政中可能比接受无政府状态对生命的威胁更小。


Calming a volatile situation may mean not publicly denouncing behavior that cries out for condemnation.	平息动荡局势可能意味着不公开谴责应该被定罪的行为。


Making the right call is more difficult in the real world than in a philosophy classroom.	在现实中发出正确的声音比在哲学教室中更难。


But sometimes the line really is crossed, all relevant players know it, and the consequences are potentially profound.	但有时这条线真的会被越过，所有相关方都知道这一点，而且后果可能影响深远。


The United States’ failure so far to cut off its military aid to Egypt in response to the regime’s massacre of hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, in the streets and in prisons, is as clear a recent case as one can find.	美国至今没有因为军队在街头和监狱中屠杀数百名穆斯林兄弟会支持者而砍掉其对埃及的军事援助，这是人人都看到的最新例子。


Former President Mohamed Morsi’s government was a catastrophic failure – ruthlessly ideological, economically illiterate, and constitutionally irresponsible.	前总统穆尔西政府是一场灾难性的失败——意识形态上冷酷无情，经济上完全外行，宪政上又不可靠。


It deeply polarized a society yearning for a new inclusiveness.	它将一个渴望新的包容性的社会深深地极化了。


But, had the army held its nerve – and triggers – there is every reason to believe that Morsi would have been voted out in the next election.	但是，如果军队保持冷静——并且管住扳机——有充分的理由相信穆尔西在下一次选举中将被选下台。


If the Muslim Brotherhood denied a ballot, or refused to accept defeat, tougher measures could then have been contemplated.	如果穆斯林兄弟会否认投票结果，或拒绝接受被击败的事实，此时再采取更严厉的措施不迟。


As it is, the army’s coup was indefensible, and its slaughter of mostly unarmed protesters ranks in infamy with the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, and those of Libya’s former leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, and Syria’s Hafez and Bashar al-Assad.	军队的政变是站不住脚的，其对大多手无寸铁的示威者的屠杀堪与1989年天安门事件以及利比亚前领导人卡扎菲和叙利亚的哈菲兹和巴沙尔等人的暴行相提并论。


It is not as if maintaining its $1.3 billion in annual military aid gives the US any leverage over Egypt’s behavior.	维持每年13亿美元的军事援助并没有让美国获得任何左右埃及行为的能力。


It might have once, but the amount now pales in significance next to the $12 billion in economic assistance recently rushed to the generals by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.	它或许曾经获得过，但如今埃及将军们从沙特、科威特和阿联酋那里获得了120美元的经济援助，让美国的援助相形见绌。


Certainly, the regime would resent withdrawal of this aid, as would most of the Brotherhood’s civilian opponents; but that matters less than the impact on American credibility, in the Middle East and the rest of the world, of not doing so.	显然，若撤销这一援助，埃及军方将会记仇，大部分穆兄会的平民反对者也是如此； 但更大的影响是不这么做会对美国在中东和世界其他地区的信誉构成冲击。


Unless political leaders know that tearing up the rule book on the scale seen in Egypt will expose them to more than rhetorical consequences, the tacit message – that regimes that pick the “right” targets can repress at will – will resonate in Bahrain, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Syria.	除非政治领导人知道，像埃及如此规模的破坏规则，给他们带来的后果不仅仅是暴露于辞令上的抨击之下，还有大家心照不宣的信息——军方可以随意选择“正确”的目标进行镇压——这会在巴林、也门和沙特引起共振，更不用说叙利亚了。


Farther afield, the US risks reinforcing the perception that it is comfortable with double standards.	往更远的地方说，美国也有被坐实安然接受双重标准的风险。


For a country whose global leadership depends as much on its soft power as on its military might, that is dynamite.	美国的全球领导力取决于软实力的程度不亚于武力，因此这具有爆炸性的后果。


The charge sheet here is already rather full, with multiple instances in recent years of America being almost universally regarded as not practicing what it preaches.	在这方面，美国的案底已经相当多，近年来，很多例子表明美国几乎总是说一套做一套。


For starters, there was the invasion of Iraq in 2003: Embracing the United Nations Security Council when you get your way, but bypassing it when you don’t, does not do much to encourage a cooperative rule-based international order.	首先是2003年入侵伊拉克：联合国安理会批准你时就与安理会合作，安理会不批准就绕开它，这对合作性的、以规则为基础的国际秩序来说可不是好榜样。


Then there was the Palestinian election of 2006: Promoting democracy generates ridicule when it extends only to elections that produce palatable winners, as Gaza’s vote for Hamas did not.	接着是2006年巴勒斯坦选举：推进民主最后成了笑柄，因为它只扩展到产生了合意获胜者的选举，加沙选出哈马斯却不被承认。