運用一切資源武裝自己 ISIS不僅靠嗜血立身

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

自從激進的極權主義組織“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)橫空出世、肆虐敘利亞和伊拉克以來，人們一直帶着恐懼和濃厚的興趣來研究它。

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

人們充分注意到了ISIS的以下特點：它的戰士極其殘暴，在非常規和常規的戰鬥手段之間切換自如；與以往的聖戰組織不同，ISIS裝備精良、能夠自己籌集滿足組織發展所需的資金，能夠當起遜尼派不滿教衆所發起的運動的領頭羊；一方面善於利用媒體、宣傳手段高明，另一方面信奉瘋狂、野蠻的教派主義。

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

人們未能恰當地認識到的一點是，ISIS極富政治手腕，使得該組織能夠逐步瓦解鄰近國家之間脆弱的凝聚力，從而可以將影響力擴展到敘利亞和伊拉克它已經控制的區域以外。

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

ISIS正在猛烈轟擊鄰近國家的國門——黎巴嫩、土耳其，某種程度上還包括約旦，最終可能還會包括沙特阿拉伯。儘管我們可以在軍事上擊退它，但它仍然能夠通過播撒恐懼的種子、利用對手陣營內部的分歧獲取政治優勢。它無需擊破別國的國門，只需等待對手內部產生裂痕、然後乘虛而入。

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

一名熟悉敘利亞和伊拉克情況的西方官員表示：“他們好像什麼都讀過。”這位官員指的不止是《古蘭經》(Koran)或聖訓（hadith，即默罕默德言行錄——譯者注），還包括毛澤東和弗朗茨•法農(Frantz Fanon)。像之前那些經歷了興衰的聖戰主義組織一樣，ISIS仍有可能擴張過度、自取滅亡。但就目前而言，它是個高明、具有致命威脅的組織。

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

比如說，人們通常認爲，ISIS圍攻位於敘利亞與土耳其邊境的庫爾德城市科巴尼（Kobani，阿拉伯語稱艾因阿拉伯）是出於戰略考慮，或是這一舉動具有象徵意義。然而，土耳其與敘利亞和伊拉克的邊境長達1300公里，ISIS並無緊迫的理由犧牲約500名戰士的生命，非要奪取科巴尼所處的這段邊境。ISIS讓科巴尼成爲一個象徵，但通過攻打這個地方，他們也離間了土耳其的新伊斯蘭主義執政者和庫爾德少數民族之間的關係。

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

在黎巴嫩，1975年至1990年的教派戰爭留下的創傷仍在隱隱作痛，ISIS在這裏的影響可能更加直接。ISIS在8月突破敘利亞邊界線、打入以遜尼派爲主的阿薩爾城(Arsal)。在的黎波里，軍方與遜尼派伊斯蘭極端分子之間的激戰仍在持續。黎巴嫩軍方在與得到伊朗支持的什葉派準軍事組織黎巴嫩真主黨(Hizbollah)並肩作戰，後者對外力挺阿薩德政權，對內有能力左右黎巴嫩國內的政治集團。聯合作戰的雙方看上去能夠掌控局面，但代價是疏遠了遜尼派，這在政治上對ISIS有利。

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

ISIS將繼續設法聯合地方極端分子，以及土耳其、黎巴嫩和約旦境內數百萬遜尼派難民中的同情者。因爲煽動民衆反對美國領導的對抗ISIS的“十字軍”聯盟（約旦如今加入了這個聯盟），臭名昭著的基地組織(al-Qaeda)“精神導師”阿布•穆罕默德•馬克迪西(Abu Mohammed al-Makdisi)不久前在約旦被捕。長期以來，薩拉菲原教旨主義在約旦的薩卡(Zarqa)、馬安(Maan)等城市滋生，幫助孕育了ISIS的前身。“我們不擔心Da’esh（ISIS的阿拉伯語縮寫）會衝破我們的邊界線，”約旦首都安曼的一名商業大亨表示，“我擔心的是原本就存在於我們境內的東西。”

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

在遜尼派看來，敘利亞背叛了教義，伊拉克遜尼派遭到強取豪奪，針對遜尼派的這種看法，ISIS提出了一個奇妙的觀點：儘管全世界16億穆斯林中有約13億爲遜尼派，但遜尼派在某種程度上卻是受到迫害的少數派。要在政治上駁斥這種說法，需要主流遜尼派發揮領導力。然而，西方眼下卻退回了支持遜尼派獨裁政權的老路。其中最大的獨裁政權就是沙特阿拉伯，它和ISIS都信仰瓦哈比(Wahhabi)教義，比如認爲什葉派是盲信的背教者，沙特還用石油美元和有害的偏見填補了遜尼派領導權缺失留下的空白。