沙特阿拉伯與ISIS的奇特關係

The death last week of Prince Saud al-Faisal, the respected statesman who had been foreign minister of Saudi Arabia for 40 years until this spring, prompted comment about the kingdom’s apparent transition from diplomacy behind the scenes to a policy of confrontation with Iran, the Sunni Arab realm’s Shia and Persian rival for regional hegemony.

費薩爾親王(Prince Saud Al-Faisal)擔任沙特外交大臣長達40年，直至今年春季才卸任。這位備受尊敬的政治家於近日病逝，外界隨即評論稱，沙特明顯正從幕後外交轉向與伊朗正面對抗。兩國是爭奪地區霸權的對手，沙特王國是遜尼派掌權的阿拉伯國家，而伊朗是什葉派掌權國家，人口以波斯人爲主。

There is some truth in this. Prince Saud was by instinct a bridge-builder. Saudi foreign policy at the moment seems to be burning a lot of bridges. King Salman, who succeeded the late King Abdullah in January and recentralised power around himself and his family, served notice in March that he would fight Shia fire with Sunni fire.

上述說法有幾分道理。費薩爾親王天生是一位“修橋人”。目前沙特的外交政策似乎正在燒掉大量的橋樑。薩勒曼(Salman)在今年1月接替阿卜杜拉(King Abdullah)出任沙特國王，他將權力重新集中在他本人及他的家族周圍。薩勒曼國王在3月份宣稱，遜尼派將對什葉派以牙還牙。

The ruling House of Saud, legitimised by the kingdom’s absolutist strain of Wahhabi Islam, had watched in appalled paralysis as Iran and its proxies exploited the mayhem unleashed across Arab lands — from the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the Arab spring after 2011 — to forge a Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut.

在伊朗及其代理人利用阿拉伯地區的混亂局勢——從2003年美國牽頭入侵伊拉克到2011年之後的“阿拉伯之春”運動——締結從巴格達到貝魯特的什葉派軸心聯盟之際，伊斯蘭瓦哈比專制教派支持的沙特王室感到極度的震驚，並且沒有還手之力。

In March the Saudis launched an air war in Yemen, claiming Iran was behind an attempt by Shia Houthi fighters to overrun the country. Three months of futile and indiscriminate bombing later, this multi-sided contest for a failed state is no closer to resolution. The Saudis, who have never managed to do much about their ungovernable southern neighbours except bribe a varying combination of tribes, know full well that Tehran has played little more than a peripheral role in their recent protagonism. The war in Yemen is more a signal of deep unhappiness at the deal the US and world powers have struck with Iran over its nuclear programme. The bombing started in late March just as the two sides worked on a framework agreement in Lausanne.

今年3月，沙特對也門發動了空襲，並宣稱伊朗是什葉派胡塞(Houthi)武裝分子肆虐也門的幕後主使。在經過3個月毫無成效的狂轟亂炸之後，這種多方參與的對一個失敗國家的爭奪仍毫無解決之計。沙特人除了賄賂諸多部落以外，從未對他們難以控制的南部鄰國有過多少作爲，他們清楚地知道，德黑蘭在他們最近的重要行動中只不過扮演着次要角色。也門戰爭更多地表明，沙特對美國及其他強國與伊朗簽署核協議感到極度不滿。空襲也門開始於今年3月底，當時正是美伊雙方在瑞士洛桑準備簽署框架協議之際。

In the interim, the regional menace of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis) has not stopped the Saudi government fixating primarily on Iran and the Shia — but that was true long before the death of Prince Saud.

在此期間，“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)的地區性威脅未能阻止沙特政府把目光主要放在伊朗和什葉派上——但早在費薩爾親王病逝前就是這種情況了。

The veteran Arab diplomat had warned the Bush administration what would happen in Iraq and the region if it went ahead with the 2003 invasion. But it was also Prince Saud, Arab officials say, who told John Kerry, US secretary of state, last summer after Isis surged back from Syria into Iraq, that “Daesh [an Arabic acronym for Isis] is our [Sunni] response to your support for the Da’wa”, the Shia Islamist party that has dominated Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime — with varying degrees of support from Washington and Tehran.

阿拉伯資深外交官曾警告布什政府稱，如果推進2003年的入侵行動，伊拉克和中東地區將會陷入混亂。但阿拉伯國家的官員們表示，在ISIS從敘利亞殺回伊拉克之後，去年夏天費薩爾親王曾向美國國務卿約翰克里(John Kerry)表示，“達伊沙（阿拉伯語對ISIS的首字母縮略詞）是我們（遜尼派）對你們支持達瓦黨(Da’wa)的迴應”。達瓦黨是自薩達姆侯賽因(Saddam Hussein)的遜尼少數派政權倒臺以來在伊拉克佔據主導地位的伊斯蘭什葉派系，獲得了華盛頓和德黑蘭不同程度的支持。

Isis is, of course, a physical threat to Saudi Arabia, where online polling suggests it has alarmingly high support. But the main fear of Saudi rulers is of being outflanked on the religious right by the jihadi extremists. The competition, therefore, is between Wahhabi absolutists and the Sunni supremacists of Isis as to which of them is a more credible scourge of the Shia — branded in both ideologies as polytheist heretics and rafidah (“rejectionist”).

當然，ISIS對沙特阿拉伯造成了切實威脅，該國在線民調顯示，ISIS的支持率高得驚人。但沙特統治者主要擔憂的是，在宗教權利方面，他們會被作爲聖戰極端分子的ISIS所超過。因此，競爭是在瓦哈比專制派別和ISIS的遜尼至上主義派別之間展開的，以決定他們哪個更有可能給什葉派造成麻煩——兩種教義均將什葉派貼上多神主義異教徒和拒絕派(rafidah)的標籤。

The speeches of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared Isis caliph, are often marinated in pieces of Islamic lore ripped from their context and always threatening. But they repay examination. In mid-May, he labelled the Yemen operation, which the Saudis called Storm of Resolve, “the kick of a dying person”.

ISIS自封的哈里發阿布貝克爾巴格達迪(Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi)在演講中往往夾雜着斷章取義的伊斯蘭教義，始終在危言恫嚇。但這些演講值得研究。今年5月中旬，巴格達迪將空襲也門行動稱爲“垂死之人的掙扎”——沙特稱爲“決心風暴”。

He mocked the Saudi air strikes as “a storm of delusion” and spoke of “the Muslim public in the Arabian Peninsula rallying around the Islamic State since it defends them against the rafidah”.

他將沙特的空襲行動嘲諷爲“妄想風暴”，並表示，“阿拉伯半島的穆斯林民衆聚集在我們的周圍，因爲伊斯蘭國幫助他們抵禦拒絕派”。

Picking up on reports that Saudi Arabia had held meetings with Israel to discuss the consequences of an Iran nuclear deal, the Isis leader said the al-Saud were “not people of war” but “people of luxury and extravagance, people of intoxication, prostitution, dances and feasts...慍挀挀甀猀琀漀洀攀攙 to the defence of the Jews and Crusaders”.

巴格達迪注意到有報道稱，沙特與以色列會晤以討論伊朗核協議的影響，他表示，阿勒沙特家族“不是好戰者”，他們“窮奢極欲，喜好酗酒、娼妓、跳舞和宴會……習慣於猶太人和十字軍的防禦”。

Isis has a record of following up such rants with action. It bombed two Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia’s eastern province in May and then sent a Saudi suicide bomber to kill Shia in a mosque in Kuwait City. This sectarian carnage shows that, while the Wahhabis marginalise the “rafidah”, Isis exterminates them. Such attacks also show the limits of Saudi control, in the part of the kingdom that contains most of its Shia and nearly all its oil. But if the authorities move towards conciliating the Shia, that plays very well for Isis too.

ISIS有着大放厥詞之後採取相應實際行動的記錄。今年5月，它轟炸了沙特東部省份的兩座什葉派清真寺，隨後派一名沙特人在科威特市的清真寺裏實施自殺性炸彈襲擊以殺害什葉派人。這種教派屠殺表明，在瓦哈比邊緣化“拒絕派”的同時，ISIS在滅絕他們。此類襲擊還表明，沙特在其境內的大部分什葉派居住地以及幾乎全部的石油儲藏地控制力有限。但如果沙特政府向着與什葉派和解的方向發展，那也非常有利於ISIS。

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy dependent on the Wahhabi clerical establishment, is purportedly a vital ally in the fight against Isis. Yet the kingdom is hoist with its own petard of religious absolutism at a time when the crumbling region around it needs the emerging detente with Iran to become eventually an entente — something Saud al-Faisal would instinctively have grasped.

沙特阿拉伯是一個依賴瓦哈比教派的君主專制國家，被認爲是打擊ISIS的關鍵盟友。然而，在陷入混亂的周邊地區需要與伊朗之間新出現的緩和局面，以最終實現和解之際——費薩爾親王會本能地明白這一點——沙特卻吞下了宗教專制主義的苦果。