伊朗之战 | 大西洋月刊

The Battle for Iran

Protest movements in the Middle East face enormous repressive hurdles and rarely have happy endings. Even when protesters “succeed” in toppling an autocrat, they’ve rarely succeeded in ending autocracy.

中东地区的抗议运动面临巨大阻碍，难有善终。即便抗议者“成功”推翻暴君，也很难结束暴政。

In Iran, the obstacles to success are daunting. Whereas most Middle Eastern countries are ruled by secular autocrats focused on repressing primarily Islamist opposition, Iran is an Islamist autocracy focused on repressing secular opposition. This dynamic—unarmed, unorganized, leaderless citizens seeking economic dignity and pluralism, versus a heavily armed, organized, rapacious ruling theocracy that espouses martyrdom—is not a recipe for success.

在伊朗，获得成功的障碍之巨更加令人气馁。多数中东国家由世俗暴君统治，他们主要压迫伊斯兰反对派，可伊朗是伊斯兰暴政，压迫世俗反对派。一边是手无寸铁、没有组织、没有领袖的公民，他们渴望经济尊严和文化多样；另一边是全副武装、组织严密、敢下狠手、不惜成仁的神权政体，简直是鸡蛋碰石头。

And yet, against this inauspicious backdrop, Iran’s mushrooming anti-government protests—although so far much smaller in scale than the country’s 2009 uprising—have been unprecedented in their geographic scope and intensity. They began December 28 in Mashhad, a Shiite pilgrimage city often considered a regime stronghold, with protesters chanting slogans like “leave Syria alone, think about us.” 

尽管前景不妙，伊朗反政府抗议还是此起彼伏，虽说比2009年的暴动规模小得多，可就地理范围和强度而言史无前例。12月28日从马什哈德起事，那里是什叶派圣地，常被视作政权的堡垒，抗议者高喊“别管叙利亚了，想想我们”的口号。

They soon spread to Qom, Iran’s holiest city, where protesters expressed nostalgia for Reza Shah, the 20th-century modernizing autocrat who ruthlessly repressed the clergy. They continued in provincial towns, with thousands chanting, “we don’t want an Islamic Republic” in Najafabad, “death to the revolutionary guards” in Rasht, and “death to the dictator” in Khoramabad. They’ve since spread to Tehran, and hundreds have been arrested, the BBC reported, citing Iranian officials. 

抗议很快扩散到伊朗圣城库姆，抗议者怀念国王巴列维，这位二十世纪的现代主义暴君曾残酷镇压教士。抗议在各省的城镇爆发，数以千计的人高喊口号——在纳杰法巴德，人们喊“我们不要伊斯兰共和国”；在拉什特，人们喊“革命卫队去死”；在霍拉马巴德，人们喊“暴君去死”。抗议延伸到德黑兰，BBC引用伊朗官员消息称有数百人被捕。

What triggered these protests is a subject of debate—some evidence suggests they were initially encouraged by hardline forces to embarrass President Hassan Rouhani—but what has fueled them have been the same grievances that power anti-government protests everywhere: rising living costs, endemic corruption, fraud, mismanagement.

引发抗议的原因尚有争议，有证据表明，他们开始受到了强硬派鼓励，准备让哈桑▪鲁哈尼难堪，但引人愤怒的原因与各地的反政府抗议一样：生活成本攀升、塌方式腐败、欺诈、管理不善。

While these grievances have been festering for years and indeed decades, among the dozens of factors that distinguish today’s protests from 2009 is the smartphone. In 2009—when an estimated 2 million to 3 million Iranians protested silently in Tehran—fewer than 1 million Iranians owned such a device, and few outside Tehran.

这些不满情绪酝酿多年，可达数十年，但今天的抗议与2009年不同的有数十种因素，其中之一是有了智能手机。2009年，预计两三百万伊朗人在德黑兰安静地抗议，当时不到一百万伊朗人有智能手机，出了德黑兰更少。

Today, an astonishing 48 million Iranians are thought to have smartphones, all of them equipped with social media and communication apps. The app Telegram alone is thought to have 40 million users, elusive from government control, but not immune to a communications shutdown if Tehran tries to throttle the internet. 

今天，高达4800万伊朗人被认为拥有智能手机，所有都使用社交媒体和聊天软件。仅Telegram就有4000万用户，不受政府控制，但如果伊朗政府关掉互联网，他们也就没法交流了。

But while Iranians have a much better understanding how elsewhere is living, the rest of the world has had a less clear idea of how Iranians are living given Tehran’s effective distortion of Western media coverage. Since 2009 and even before, the dogged professional journalists covering Iran—including The Wall Street Journal’s Farnaz Fassihi, The New York Times’s Nazila Fathi, Newsweek’s Maziar Bahari, Reuters’s Parisa Hafezi and Babak Dehghanpisheh, and dozens more—have been intimidated, expelled, and in some cases imprisoned. The few journalists remaining in Iran rightfully worry about their personal safety. Many of the best Iranian writers, scholars, and artists of their generation have been similarly banished from Iran.

尽管伊朗人对其他地方人如何生活了解得很多，其他地区却不怎么了解伊朗人是如何生活的，德黑兰政府成功歪曲了西方媒体报道。2009年后，甚至以前，多家主流媒体的专业记者一直受到恐吓、驱逐，甚至遭到逮捕。很少有留在伊朗的记者不担心人身安全。这一代很多最出色的伊朗作家、学者和艺术家都遭到驱逐。

At the same time, the regime has provided visas and access to those whom they know will provide friendlier coverage. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has been especially effective at manipulating Western journalists, analysts, and officials. This has created an opening for a new breed of opinion journalists and analysts—some of whom are simultaneously seeking and promoting business opportunities in Iran—pulling punches in order to preserve their access.

同时，政权给那些能做正面报道的人发签证。外交部长扎里夫尤其擅长摆布西方记者、分析人士和官员。这培育了一批意见记者和分析人士，其中一些还在伊朗做生意，他们为了获得签证而虚与委蛇。

What happens now?

The Iranian government has the highest per capita execution rate in the world, treats women as second class citizens, persecutes gays and religious minorities, and stifles free speech. While there is a natural inclination among decent people everywhere to want a peaceful civil rights movement to succeed in Iran, there are ample reasons to believe it will not. The regime’s coercive apparatus—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Bassij milita—are organized, armed, and abundant, and well-practiced in the brutal science of repression. Opponents of the government, in contrast, are unarmed, leaderless, and rudderless. 

伊朗政府有世界上最高的人均死刑率，把妇女当做二等公民，迫害同性恋和宗教少数派，压制自由言论。所有正直的人都希望和平民权运动能在伊朗成功，但有充足的理由认为，那不会发生。这一政权的镇压工具——伊朗革命卫队和巴斯基民兵全副武装、兵强马壮，擅长镇压之事。相反，反政府者手无寸铁、没有领袖、没有舵手。

In addition, Iran has at its disposal tens of thousands of Shia militiamen—including Lebanese Hezbollah—it has been cultivating for years and in some cases decades. For these battle-hardened forces, crushing unarmed Iranian protesters is a much easier task than fighting Syrian rebels or Sunni jihadists.

此外，伊朗还拥有数万名什叶派民兵，包括黎巴嫩真主党，培养多年，甚至数十年。这些久经沙场的将士，打垮手无寸铁的伊朗抗议者，比打击叙利亚反对派或逊尼派圣战者要容易得多。

While some have expressed hope these protests might compel the Iranian government to try and address popular grievances, history shows us the opposite is more likely true. In the weeks and months to come, expect the regime to grow ever more repressive. Iran’s security forces thrive when there is insecurity. Some Iranians even fear the IRGC has allowed the protests to fester as a pretext for expanding their authority in the name of national security. 

有人希望抗议会迫使伊朗政府应对民众抱怨，历史证明，结果可能恰恰相反。未来数周甚至数月，政权会更强硬。越是动荡，伊朗安全部队越得势。有伊朗人甚至担心，正是伊朗革命卫队故意放任抗议，好以国家安全之名扩大权力。

文章仅代表作者个人观点。