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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the defeat of the ISIS caliphate a “critical milestone,” and Iraqi prime minister Haider Abadi hailed “the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism” that ISIS had proclaimed from Mosul. Yet even as the partners cheered the defeat of one state, they acknowledged the need to rebuild another one — Iraq — if they want to avoid cyclic repetition of the same conflict. Abadi, like American commanders on the ground, described a daunting task: to unify feuding militias, provide services to long-ignored populations, and perform effective police work — in short, to finally extend a functional state throughout Iraq.
国务卿雷克斯·蒂勒森将ISIS哈里发政权（
冬天毛注：哈里发是伊斯兰教的宗教及世俗的最高统治者的称号
）的败退称为“一座关键的里程碑”，而伊拉克总理海德尔·阿巴迪则对ISIS在摩苏尔宣布建立的“虚假、恐怖主义的恐怖分子国家的失败和崩溃”表示了欢欣。然而，即便在好战友们庆祝一个国家的溃败时，他们也认同，如果要避免相同争斗的循环往复，就有必要重建另一个国家——也就是伊拉克。和第一线的美国指挥官们一致，阿巴迪指出了一项艰巨的任务：将争斗不休的民兵武装们统一起来，向长期以来被忽略的人民们提供公共服务，以及执行有效的治安工作——一言以蔽之，也就是最终让
一个正常运转的国家得以覆盖
伊拉克全境。
In the years since terrorism has become an American obsession, much attention has focused on the root causes of nihilistic violence. The latest iteration of this vague quest, which attracts billions of dollars in government funding, is “countering violent extremism.” But it’s entirely possible that violent extremists aren’t really the problem at all; they only matter in places where the state is too weak to provide security, or too incoherent to explain why terrorist attacks are merely a crime, rather an existential threat.
在恐怖主义成为美国人的老生常谈的这些年来，有很多人都在着眼于虚无主义暴力活动的根本成因，而这项模糊暧昧的使命的最新一轮任务叫做“对抗暴力极端主义”，并吸取了几十上百亿美元的政府拨款。然而完全有可能的是，暴力极端主义根本就不是问题所在；只有当国家政权太过虚弱、无法维持治安，或者执政理念太过颠三倒四，无法将恐怖袭击诠释为单纯的犯罪而不是根本存在威胁时，暴力极端主义才是个事。
Here’s another way to put it: There is no after ISIS, because ISIS isn’t the problem. The collapse of states is.
或者还有个说法：不存在所谓的“ISIS之后”，因为问题根本就不是ISIS，而是国家政府的垮台。
The most effective infantry troops in the war against ISIS, in fact, come from movements whose long-term aspirations are accelerating the collapse of the state order in the Middle East. To be sure, the key fighting groups — the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, the Shia militias referred to as the Popular Mobilization Units, and the Syrian Kurds from the PKK — are nothing like ISIS. They aspire to political and territorial power without the murderous, nihilistic sectarianism of the Islamic State. At the same time, these groups all profoundly oppose central government in the areas where they live. Some, like the Iraqi peshmerga, want to form a smaller, independent Kurdish republic, even though they are internally divided in a way that promises future strife and civil wars, not harmony. Others, like the Shia militias, want to carve out an autonomous state of their own that functions in the lee of a hobbled central government.
事实上，在对抗ISIS的战争中最卓有建树的步兵部队们，恰恰是来自于那些以加速中东国家秩序崩塌为长期目标的运动。当然，那些关键的武装组织——伊拉克库尔德人的佩什梅格部队、被称为“人民动员部队”的什叶派民兵，以及库尔德斯坦工人党的叙利亚库尔德斯坦武装——都和ISIS相去甚远；这些人渴望的是政治和领土权力，而不是“伊斯兰国”那血腥、虚无主义的宗派主义理念。与此同时，这些组织都深深反对将他们所处的区域纳入中央政府的统治之下。有一些组织，比如伊拉克佩什梅格，想要成立一个更小的、独立的库尔德共和国，尽管他们的内部分歧注定了未来的矛盾和内战，而不是和睦共处。
The United States has contributed mightily to this dismal state of affairs. To solve an immediate problem, ISIS, it guaranteed a still-more toxic long-term problem: an ungovernable zone stretching from the Mediterranean to the Zagros Mountains, where death squads, militants and fundamentalists will continue to proliferate.
对于这副惨淡的现状，美国居功甚伟。为了解决ISIS这个眼前的麻烦，美国确实地引发了一个毒害更重的长期问题：一片西起地中海，东至扎格罗斯山脉的无政府地带，在这里，暗杀队、武装分子和原教旨主义者们生生不息，蓬勃滋长。
And as ISIS taught us well, local problems rarely remain local.
而就像ISIS已经令我们痛觉的那样，城门失火，殃及池鱼。
The central problem to face after the ISIS caliphate, then, isn’t whether the Islamic State will return or in what form, but when we’re going to tackle the epochal and complex challenge of supporting coherent states in the Middle East. The United States has been a major catalyst of the current entropy and chaos in the Arab world — sometimes through direct destabilizing actions, like the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and other times abetting long-term corrosion by backing ineffectual, tyrannical despots who ransack their own states in order to cling to power.
所以，在ISIS哈里发政权倒台后，我们需要面对的核心问题并不是“伊斯兰国”会否，或是以什么形式卷土而来，而是我们何时才能面对跨时代的复杂挑战，在中东支援建立完整统一的国家政权。一直以来，美国都是导致阿拉伯世界七零八散混沌现状的主要诱因——有时是通过直接行动破坏其稳定，比如2003年入侵伊拉克，有时是通过支持无能、残暴的独裁者，而这些人为了紧握大权，不惜洗劫自己的国家，从而诱发长期的政权腐蚀。
Much of the immediate response to the collapse of the caliphate centers on Sunnis, and is cast in simplifying sectarianism. Can their grievances be better addressed, to stop their ranks from breeding foot soldiers for nihilists? Can Shia partisans slake their thirst for power and share enough of spoils to coopt disenfranchised Sunnis?
对于哈里发政权的倒台，大部分的反响都指向了逊尼派，而且是一种过度简单化的宗派主义视线。我们能否更好地解决他们的不满，让他们的信徒们不再为虚无主义势力发展走卒？什叶派信徒们又能否在
满足自己对权力的渴望后，
通过分享足够的战利品来招安那些被剥夺了权力的逊尼派？
There are some important points nested in this type of analysis, but it overlooks one essential fact: Factors like sectarian identity, jihadi extremism, and mafia corruption only become dominant pathologies in areas where the state is no longer fully in control. The Islamic State can claim adherents in dozens of countries. But an Islamic State insurgency only rises to central importance where a failing state has left a vacuum.
这类分析确实讲出了一些重要的道理，但它忽视了一条核心事实：只有在那些已经不再受国家政府管控的地区，宗派身份、圣战极端主义和黑帮腐败这些因素才会成为主要病灶。虽然“伊斯兰国”能够在几十个国家赢得拥趸，但只有在国家政府
倒塌
并留下权力真空的地带，“伊斯兰国”的暴动才得以达到核心问题的高度。
Compare, for example, the ISIS campaign in the Levant, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi established his short-lived state, to the far less potent Islamist insurgency in Egypt. Sure, followers of the Islamic State have murdered civilians, attacked state targets, and created limited mayhem in parts of Egypt — but the Egyptian government and security services remain powerful and as much in control as they ever have been.
比如说，我们可以比较一下ISIS在黎凡特地区发起的运动和伊斯兰激进主义分子在埃及发起的暴动：前者的结果是
阿布·贝克尔·巴格达迪得以建立他短命的国家，而后者的影响则远远不如他。没错，“伊斯兰国”的追随者们杀害了平民，袭击了政府目标，并且在埃及的一部分地区制造了有限的混乱——但埃及政府和警卫部门依然保有他们的力量，并从未失去对局面的控制。
