特朗普若撕毁伊核协议将增强朝鲜核野心

To hear Donald Trump speak of Kim Jong Un is to imagine a cartoon character — a “rocket man” on a “suicide mission”. To watch the US president’s deeds, however, is to discover that the North Korean dictator is not as crazy as he makes him out to be.

听唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)说起金正恩(Kim Jong Un)，你的脑海中会浮现出一个卡通人物——一个执行“自杀式任务”的“火箭人”。然而，观察美国总统的行为，你会觉得，那位朝鲜独裁者并不像特朗普形容的那样疯狂。

I am thinking here of Mr Trump’s expected refusal to certify that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement reached with world powers in 2015. If you are Mr Kim, you would conclude that you have been right all along: the US cannot be trusted, even when it puts its name to an international agreement.

在这里，我指的是特朗普预计将拒绝承认伊朗遵守了2015年与世界大国达成的核协议。如果你是金正恩，你会得出一个结论，自己自始至终都做对了：不能相信美国，即便它在国际协议中署上了自己的名字。

Seen from Pyongyang, the only way to deter an American invasion has always been to establish North Korea as a nuclear power that is both capable and willing to strike first or retaliate devastatingly. That is why China argues against excessive pressure on the regime. Mr Kim, says one official, would “prefer to die standing” than give in to the US.

从平壤的角度来看，要阻止美国入侵，从来都只有一个办法，那就是将朝鲜打造为一个核大国，既有能力、也有意愿实施先发制人的打击，或者进行毁灭性报复。这正是为什么中国反对向朝鲜政权过度施压的原因。一名官员曾表示，金正恩“宁愿站着死”，也不愿向美国屈服。

Now Mr Kim will feel vindicated in his intransigence, and confident that his nuclear programme, far more advanced than Iran’s, remains the ticket to his regime’s survival.

如今金正恩将会认为自己不妥协是正确的，并坚信本国比伊朗先进得多的核计划仍是维持其政权生存所必需的。

Mr Trump, who likes to keep us guessing about his intentions (“It’s the calm before the storm,” he said cryptically at the weekend, a statement many took as referring to North Korea) is set to conclude that Iran is in contravention of a historic deal that rolled back Tehran’s nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief. No matter that there is no evidence to that effect from the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose job it is to rule on compliance. Or that no other signatory to the agreement agrees with the US president.

特朗普喜欢让我们猜测他的意图(“这是暴风雨来临前的平静”，他上周末神秘兮兮地说，许多人认为这一表态暗指朝鲜)，他即将认定，伊朗违背了历史性的伊核协议——伊朗终止核活动以换取解除制裁的协议。特朗普不管国际原子能机构(IAEA)并未给出伊朗违反协议的证据，也不在乎协议其他签署国都不认同他的观点。

Being Mr Trump, he could still change his mind and surprise us with a different outcome. But assuming he goes ahead with decertification, Congress will have to consider whether to re-impose sanctions on Iran or raise the pressure through other means.

因为他是特朗普，所以他仍有可能改变想法，带来一个出乎我们意料的不同结果。但假设他执意认定伊朗没有遵守协议，美国国会将不得不考虑是否重新对伊朗实施制裁，或者通过其他手段加大对伊朗施压。

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who had to be convinced by moderates in the regime of the benefits of the nuclear agreement, will have to answer hardliners who warned him against it.

曾被国内温和派说服、相信伊核协议会带来好处的伊朗最高领袖阿亚图拉阿里•哈梅内伊(Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)，将不得不向那些告诫他不要认可该协议的强硬派作出解释。

Meanwhile, from North Korea, Mr Kim will be watching. It is not just Iran’s predicament he is interested in. Sadly, he has already drawn lessons from the fate of other nuclear-aspiring leaders in the Middle East, with some of whom his regime collaborated. Those who wavered in their nuclear pursuit or were forced to abandon their programmes met an ugly death.

与此同时，坐镇朝鲜的金正恩将注视着这一切。他感兴趣的不只是伊朗的困境。唉，他早已从中东地区其他渴望拥有核武器的领导人(其中一些还与平壤合作过)的命运中吸取了教训。那些动摇了追求核武决心或者被迫放弃了核计划的领导人都死得很惨。

First, there was Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator who developed a nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme in the 1980s. In the aftermath of the first Gulf war, Iraq was forced to get rid of all weapons of mass destruction. But Saddam played a cat-and-mouse game with inspectors, feeding suspicions that he was hiding parts of his arsenal. Those suspicions gave the US the justification it was looking for to launch the Iraq war in 2003, after which Saddam was hunted down, put on trial, and hanged.

首先是萨达姆•侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)，这位伊拉克独裁者上世纪80年代就制定了研发核武器、化学和生物武器的计划。第一次海湾战争结束后，伊拉克被逼销毁了所有大规模杀伤性武器。但萨达姆与核查人员玩起了猫捉老鼠的游戏，致使外界怀疑他藏匿了部分武器。这些猜疑，给美国2003年发动伊拉克战争提供了理由，后来萨达姆被抓获，受审并被处以绞刑。

Extensive searches after the war, however, produced no weapons, leading some observers to speculate that Saddam had perpetuated the myth of WMD possession to maintain the climate of fear that helped him stay in power.

然而，战后进行的大规模搜查并未发现任何此类武器。一些观察人士因此推测，萨达姆任由自己拥有大规模杀伤性武器的谎话继续流传，是为了维持一种有助于他继续掌权的恐怖气氛。

Then there was Muammer Gaddafi, the mercurial Libyan leader labelled by Ronald Reagan as the “mad dog” of the Middle East. In 2003, after negotiations with the US and Britain, Gaddafi announced the dismantling of his nuclear programme. The decision paved the way for Libya’s rehabilitation. Less than a decade later, when the Libyan revolution erupted and Gaddafi threatened to attack the eastern city of Benghazi, a Nato-led coalition intervened and tilted the balance of power towards Libya’s rebels. Gaddafi was captured by rebels and killed.

接着是性格反复无常的利比亚领导人穆阿迈尔•卡扎菲(Muammer Gaddafi)，罗纳德•里根(Ronald Reagan)曾说他是中东“疯狗”。2003年，在与美英两国谈判后，卡扎菲宣布放弃核计划。这一决定为利比亚复兴铺平了道路。但不到10年后，当利比亚爆发革命、卡扎菲威胁攻打东部城市班加西时，北约领导的联军进行了干预，使得战场上的实力天平偏向了利比亚叛军一边。卡扎菲最终被叛军抓获并击毙。

Mr Kim, who is only 33 and wishing to prolong his own life and that of his regime, is gambling that his nuclear weapons will save him from a similar fate and force the US to accept North Korea as a nuclear power. It will turn out to be a grave miscalculation if the US and North Korea go to war. But when Mr Trump undermines the nuclear deal with Iran, he also reinforces Mr Kim’s belief that his gamble is worth taking.

年仅33岁、希望自己和金氏政权都能长久的金正恩赌的是，他手中的核武器将保护自己免遭类似命运，并迫使美国接受朝鲜成为拥核国家。如果美朝两国爆发战争，那将是严重误判的结果。但是，当特朗普破坏伊核协议时，他同时也将强化金正恩的信念，即拥核是一件值得冒险去做的事。