原作者：
来源What Bin Laden's Death Really Means | Stephen M Walt
译者Taranee
It seems somewhat superfluous of me to join the feeding frenzy of commentary on the killing of Osama bin Laden, but it is also an event that I can’t quite ignore. I caught the announcement late last night, along with some rather breathless initial commentary. Here are a few initial reactions.
對我來說加入到逐漸激烈評論奧薩馬·本·拉登之死的行列似乎有幾分多余，但這仍然是一件我確實無法忽略的大事件。我在昨晚得到官方聲明，還有一些更令人窒息的早先評論。一下是一些最初的反應。
For starters, I think it’s important to keep his killing in perspective. By all accounts bin Laden was no longer playing an operational role for al Qaeda, and his main value to the movement he founded was largely symbolic. It was the fact that he was still at large and still defiant that made him significant, and his death takes that symbolic value away. He may serve as an inspirational martyr for a few people, but I doubt that lots of new recruits will rally to al Qaeda’s banner merely to avenge his death.
首先，我認為最重要的是正確看待他的死亡。所有報告都說本拉登將不在基地組織中扮演操縱者的角色，他在這個他建立的組織中最重要的價值只是作為一個重要象征。他的影響力依然很強而且始終順服，這些實事使他依然具有特殊意義，他的死還使他的象征價值延伸得更為廣泛。他很可能作為精神烈士服務於小部分人，但是我懷疑還有許多新兵在基地組織的號召下為他的死報仇。
In fact, one could argue that the movement he founded has already failed. He hoped to inspire a broad fundamentalist revolution that would topple existing Arab governments and usher in a unified Islamic caliphate, but that goal has failed to resonate among Arab and Muslim populations and his own popularity has declined steadily since 9/11. Instead, the upheavals that have swept the Arab world in 2011 have drawn their inspiration not from bin Laden but from more universal ideals of democracy, human rights, and open discourse. And the more that these movements succeed, the more discredited his entire approach to politics will be.
事實上，可以說他建立的這個組織已經失敗了。他希望能引導一場廣泛、統一的伊斯蘭原教旨主義革命來推翻現存的阿拉伯政府，但是這個目標並沒有得到阿拉伯和穆斯林民眾的回應而且9·11之後他的他的聲望持續下降。2011年橫掃阿拉伯世界的劇變是收到了更國際化的民主、人權、言論自由思想的啟示而不是來自於本拉登。而且這些民主運動越是成功，他所有的政治手段就會越不值得信任。
Which is not to say that bin Laden was a complete failure. One of his main goals was to lure the United States into costly and protracted wars in the Muslim world, and with our help, he succeeded. Had 9/11 never occurred, the United States would not have squandered trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly accelerated the end of the “unipolar moment.” But this “achievement” was not solely his doing. Had the Bush administration been smarter, and focused on counter-terrorism rather than a misguided campaign of “regional transformation,” we might have found him sooner and at less financial, human, and reputational cost.
這並不是說本拉登是徹底的失敗。他的主要目標之一就是誘使美國陷入與穆斯林世界的戰爭中消耗財力，虧了政府的配合，他成功了。假使9·11沒有發生，美國也不會在阿富汗和伊拉克搭上數兆美元和那麼多性命很可能加速了“單極世界”的覆滅。但是功勞可不是他個人的。如果布什政府當初能聰明一點，並且集中力量反恐而不是陷入“改變區域”的戰爭泥沼，我們本可以更早的找到本拉登減少經濟、性命和名譽損失。
Going forward, focusing too much attention on bin Laden threatens to distract us from the broader social and political challenges that the United States still faces in the Arab and Islamic world. Bin Laden is gone, but anger at various aspects of U.S. policy continues to drive anti-Americanism and makes it more difficult to protect our core interests in that part of the world. Al Qaeda isn’t the real reason we having a hard time in Afghanistan, and it has nothing to do with our difficulties with Iran. Indeed, even it it were disappear entirely, we’d still face plenty of other foreign policy challenges in the Middle East (and elsewhere).
放眼未來，在本拉登的恐怖問題上集中太多注意力會使美國在面對更為艱巨的阿拉伯和伊斯蘭世界裡社會和政治挑戰上分心。本拉登已經過去了，但是還有很多關於美國政策方面的不滿驅使著反美主義者，這使得保護我們在那片地區的核心利益變得更難。基地組織並不是我們在阿富汗處境艱難的真正原因，這和我們與伊朗的難題也沒有關系。確實，哪怕這些問題都消失了，我們還面臨著大量和中東其他國家還有其他國家的外交挑戰。
Furthermore, there’s a tendency for both presidents and the media to exaggerate the long-term significance of events like this. Whenever we are successful, we assume our credibility will soar, our opponents will be disheartened and confused, and our allies will once again be impressed by our prowess and inclined to do our bidding. Maybe so, but the effect usually wears off quickly. In the long run, what really matters is not our ability to catch a single bad guy after ten years of trying, but rather the long-term health of the U.S. economy and our ability to devise foreign and defense policies that other powerful states will welcome and/or respect.
此外，總統和媒體都有誇大類似事件深遠意義之嫌。無論我們什麼時候取得成功，我們假定我們的可信度會得到提升，我們的對手會感到沮喪和迷茫，我們的同盟會又一次被我們的英勇感染並且執行我們的命令。可能會這樣，但是通常會很快就失效。在長跑中，真正重要的不是在10年的努力之後有能力去抓住一個壞人;而是美國經濟長期健康發展，我們構想的外交和防御政策也得到其他有實力的國家的認可和尊重。
Perhaps the best thing to hope for, therefore, is that Obama will use this event as an opportunity to “declare victory and get out.” Not that he will do this overtly, but the United States can now claim — as Obama did last night — that the primary perpetrator of 9/11 has been “brought to justice,” and that our long campaign in Central Asia has finally achieved its primary goal. (That’s not quite true, of course, but politics often involves a bit of sophistry and rhetorical sleight-of-hand). So if Obama can exploit this triumph to justify an accelerated disengagement, he’ll reap the maximum benefits from this otherwise modest victory.
也許最好的希望就是奧巴馬會因此利用這個事件作為一個“宣布勝利並且退出”的好機會。他可以不公開的這麼做。但是美國現在可以宣布──就像奧巴馬昨晚做的──9·11的元凶得到了“應有的下場”，我們在亞洲中心長期作戰終於實現了最初的目標。（這並不全是事實。當然，政治通常包括一點詭辯和修辭技巧）。那麼如果奧巴馬能利用這次凱旋來把加速跑偏的重心扳回正軌，他將從這次某種方面來說是“謙讓的勝利”中獲益匪淺。
But don’t count on it. For one thing, we’ve spent that past ten years creating a pretty massive set of organizations designed to prosecute the “war on terror,” and government bureaucracies (like other organizations) tend not to put themselves out of business without a fight. It will take a sustained political effort (and continued fiscal pressure) to unwind the post-9/11 version of the national security state, which means we’ll be standing in TSA lines, conducting drone attacks, and having our emails and phone calls scanned for a long time to come. And I suppose bin Laden would take posthumous credit for that too.
但是不要指望這一件事，我們用過去十年時間創造一系列相當大的組織旨在實施“反恐戰爭”，但是政府機構（像一些其他組織）有想不把自己置身與戰亂之中的趨勢。這需要持久的政治努力（和持久的財政支持）來使後9/11時代的國家安全趨於緩和,這意味著我們會站在美國運輸管理局的標准線上。長期實行無人幾偵察，審察我們郵件、手機的時代將會來臨。而且我猜想本拉登如果或者也會佩服美國這麼干的。
Lastly, although President Obama and his team are undoubtedly (and deservedly) gratified by this achievement, I wouldn’t rest on these laurels if I were them. President George H. W. Bush won a smashing victory in the 1991 Gulf War, and then he was turned out of office by a disgruntled electorate eighteen months later. Americans will be exchanging high-fives for a few days and Obama will no doubt get a bump in the polls, but memories are short and other issues (e.g., employment) are likely to loom much larger come 2012. As the winner of the 1992 election, Bill Clinton, might have put it: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
最後，盡管奧巴馬總統和他的團隊毋庸置疑（而且理所應當）的滿足與這個成績。如果我是他們我並不會僅僅停留在這點榮譽上。老布什總統1991年在海灣戰爭中去的傑出勝利，但是18個月後被不滿的選民趕出白宮。美國將會慶祝幾天，奧巴馬五一會在選舉中得到些支持，但是記憶是短暫的，但是其他一些問題（比如就業）可能會在2012年來臨時更令人擔憂。在1992年選舉獲勝的克林頓可能會拋出這計劃：“白癡，經濟才是關鍵。”
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