让两任美国总统头疼的伊拉克总理：马利基

WASHINGTON — One day in the fall of 2007, President George W. Bush joined Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in a video conference to sign a “declaration of principles” on the future of the Iraqi-American relations. As Mr. Bush scrawled his name, Mr. Maliki in Baghdad just passed his pen over his copy, pretending to sign.

华盛顿——2007年秋的一天，美国总统乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)与伊拉克总理努里·卡迈勒·马利基(Nuri Kamal al-Maliki)开了一个电视会议，目的是为两国关系的未来签署一份“原则宣言”。当时，布什签下了自己的名字，而身在巴格达的马利基只是把笔放在文 件上方，假装签字。

At the last minute, Mr. Maliki had decided not to sign because he said he had not read the document’s final wording, but he did not mention this to Mr. Bush, who had no idea his counterpart’s pen had not actually touched paper. An American official in the room noticed, however, and as soon as Mr. Bush’s image vanished from the screen, accosted a Maliki aide, saying, “Don’t screw with the president of the United States.”

最后一刻，马利基决定不签字，因为他说他还没有读过文件的最后措辞，但他没有把这一点告诉布什。布什不知道马利基的笔根本没有碰到纸，不过，屋内的一名美国官员注意到了。布什的画面一从屏幕上消失，他就对马利基的一名助手厉声说道，“别想跟美国总统耍花招。”

The incident that day nearly seven years ago typified the vexing and volatile relationship between the Iraqi prime minister and his American sponsors. Events were often not what they seemed, nor did they work out as they were supposed to. Mr. Maliki rose from obscurity to power in part with American help, but first Mr. Bush and then President Obama found him to be a mercurial and often unconstructive ally who caused as many headaches as he solved.

将近七年前的这一幕，能很好地说明伊拉克总理与其美国支持者之间，令人恼火又变幻莫测的关系。事情往往并不像表面看起来那样，结果也通常事与愿违。 原本默默无闻的马利基之所以能掌权，部分也是因为美国的帮助，但是布什以及随后的奥巴马总统都发现，他是一个善变的盟友，而且经常起不到任何作用，他造成 的问题与解决的问题一样多。

Now as Mr. Maliki reaches a moment of truth, either stepping down or trying to preserve power, Mr. Obama and the American government are trying to maneuver the Iraqi leader one last time in hopes of replacing him with a more reliable figure who can pull that fractious country together and work more collaboratively with Washington.

现在马利基面临着一场抉择——从命下台，或者试图攥紧权力。此时，奥巴马和美国政府也正在努力最后一次影响这位伊拉克领导人，希望能用一个更值得信赖的人物来取代他。这个人要能够把难以掌控的伊拉克凝聚起来，并且更好地与华盛顿进行合作。

For weeks, the president and his aides have said it was not their role to tell Iraq who its leader should be, but they made eminently clear on Monday that it was time for Mr. Maliki to step aside in favor of Haider al-Abadi, a fellow member of the same Shiite party nominated by President Fuad Masum to be the next prime minister.

数周以来，奥巴马及其助手都表示，他们没有资格指示伊拉克，应该让谁担任领导人。但是他们周一曾明确表示，现在马利基应该下台，支持属于同一个什叶 派政党的海德尔·阿巴迪(Haider al-Abadi)。伊拉克总统福阿德·马苏姆(Fuad Masum)已提名阿巴迪担任下一任总理。

Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. each called Mr. Abadi to congratulate him, and when the president went before cameras on Martha’s Vineyard to repeat that publicly, he pointedly did not mention Mr. Maliki’s name. When a reporter asked if he had a message for Mr. Maliki, the president walked away. That was the message.

奥巴马和副总统小约瑟夫·R·拜登(Joseph R. Biden Jr.)已分别致电阿巴迪表示祝贺。当奥巴马在玛莎葡萄园岛(Martha’s Vineyard)，面对摄像机再次公开表示祝贺时，他故意没有提马利基的名字。当一名记者问奥巴马，有什么话想对马利基说时，奥巴马转身离开。这就是他 要说的话。

“He’s stubborn and he’s a fighter and he’s going to be resisting this,” said James F. Jeffrey, who watched both presidents deal with Mr. Maliki, first as Mr. Bush’s deputy national security adviser and then as Mr. Obama’s ambassador to Baghdad. “Everybody’s pulled his hair out with him.”

“他很顽固，是个斗士，肯定会抗拒这种安排的，”詹姆斯·F·杰弗里(James F. Jeffrey)说。“所有人在与他打交道时都很一筹莫展。”杰弗里紧密观察过两位总统与马利基的交涉，他曾在布什政府担任副国家安全顾问，随后又担任奥巴马的驻巴格达大使。

In the end, Mr. Jeffrey said, it will fall to the Americans or someone else to convince Mr. Maliki to go. “I think he will step down if he has to rather than have a coup,” Mr. Jeffrey said. “He’ll try everything under the sun to block it, including arresting people, but at some point someone has to talk with him.”

杰弗里说，最后要么美国，要么其他什么人，肯定需要说服马利基下台。“我认为在迫不得已的情况下，他肯定会下台，而不是发动政变，”杰弗里说。“他肯定会用尽一切手段来阻止这种情况发生，包括逮捕人。但总有一天，有人需要和他谈谈。”

Mr. Maliki, a relatively little-known Shiite politician who spent much of Saddam Hussein’s reign outside of Iraq, was a surprise choice for prime minister in 2006 after months of deadlock. Mr. Bush was eager for the Iraqis to finally pick a prime minister who would be more decisive than Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and Mr. Bush’s ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, encouraged Mr. Maliki to run.

马利基是一个相对而言并不起眼的什叶派政治人物，萨达姆·侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)统治的大部分时间里，他都不在伊拉克。2006年，经过数月的僵持，他被出人意料地选为总理。当时，布什迫切希望伊拉克能够选择一名比易 卜拉欣·贾法里(Ibrahim al-Jaafari)更果断的总理，而且布什政府当时的驻伊拉克大使扎尔梅·哈利勒扎德(Zalmay Khalilzad)也鼓励马利基参加竞选。

“You have to understand Jaafari to understand Maliki,” Mr. Jeffrey said. “With Jaafari, we couldn’t get him to make a decision at all. With Maliki, he was a better leader, at least at the beginning.”

“要弄懂马利基，首先要弄懂贾法里，”杰弗里说。“对于贾法里，我们根本没办法让他做出什么决策。而马利基是个更好的领导者，至少一开始是这样。”

It proved complicated, however. By that fall, Americans were frustrated with Mr. Maliki, who resisted reining in Shiite militias. Stephen J. Hadley, the president’s national security adviser, told Mr. Bush in a classified memo, which was leaked, that Mr. Maliki was either “ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions” or incapable of taking action.

然而事实证明，事情很复杂。到那年秋天，拒绝约束什叶派武装组织的马利基令美国深感失望。在一份外泄的机密备忘录中，时任总统国家安全事务顾问斯蒂 芬·J·哈德利(Stephen J. Hadley)告诉布什，马利基要么“不了解当前的局势，要么曲解了他的意图”，要么就是无力采取行动。

Eventually, Mr. Bush doubled down on Mr. Maliki anyway with a risky troop surge and made a point of holding weekly video conferences with him in an effort to mentor him in the art of coalition politics.

最终，布什还是在马利基身上押上了更多筹码。布什冒险向伊拉克大幅增兵，为了表明自己的态度，还坚持每周同他召开视频会议，试图启发马利基理解联盟政治的艺术。

But the fake-signing episode underscored American frustrations. Even though Mr. Maliki later signed the agreement for real, when Iraqi foes plotted to push him out, some in the White House agreed that he should go, including Brett McGurk, the official who had confronted the Maliki aide about the fake signing, and who now works for Mr. Obama.

但签名作假事件加深了美国的失望。尽管马利基后来真的签署了该协议，但当伊拉克国内的敌人谋划推翻他时，白宫的一些人一致认为他应该下台，其中包括 布雷特·麦古尔克(Brett McGurk)。现在供职于奥巴马政府的麦古尔克，正是当年就签名作假，向马利基的助手质问的那名官员。

Mr. Bush rejected the idea but sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Baghdad to tell Mr. Maliki to shape up. “You’re a terrible prime minister,” she told Mr. Maliki. “Without progress and without an agreement, you’ll be on your own, hanging from a lamppost.”

布什回绝了这个主意，但他派国务卿康多莉扎·赖斯(Condoleezza Rice)前去巴格达，告诉马利基要好好表现。“你是个糟糕的总理，”她告诉马利基。“如果不取得进展，不寻求共识，你就会孤立无援，迟早被吊在路灯柱上。”

Mr. Maliki remained impulsive. He ordered a hasty, haphazard military operation against Shiite militias in Basra that was very nearly a disaster but succeeded with last-minute American help. Mr. Maliki, observed Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, “went from being docile to being John Wayne.”

马利基依然行事冲动。他下令对巴士拉的什叶派武装采取行动，这场毫无章法的草率行动几乎成了一场灾难，但在美国的帮助下，行动在最后时刻取得了成 功。南卡罗莱纳州共和党参议员林赛·格雷厄姆(Lindsey Graham)注意到，马利基“从一个顺从的人，变成了约翰·韦恩(John Wayne)”。

When Mr. Obama came into office, the relationship changed again. He thought Mr. Bush was too directly involved and did not continue the weekly conversations with Mr. Maliki. Instead, he left it to Mr. Biden to manage the prime minister.

奥巴马上台时，双方关系再度发生变化。奥巴马认为布什的介入过于直接，不再继续与马利基每周进行会谈，而是让拜登管理这位总理。

Mr. Biden concluded that major moves, like passing a law on oil revenue sharing, “couldn’t come in one fell swoop,” said a senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss diplomacy. “So there was more focus on incremental, doable steps that he could take. And we had some success in that, more on some issues than others.”

奥巴马政府的一名高级官员表示，拜登断定，重大举措，比如通过有关石油收入分配的法律，“不会一蹴而就。因此，拜登更关注马利基可能采取的渐进、可 行的步骤。通过这样做，我们取得了一些成绩。这个议题上成绩或许多一点，那个议题上成绩或许少一些。”由于在讨论外交议题，这名官员要求匿名。

But in the vice president’s phone calls with Mr. Maliki, the official said, “what always shone through was that he suffers from the same malady that so many regional leaders suffer from — the inability to conceive of how to share power with other key groups and constituencies.”

但这名官员称，在副总统拜登与马利基的电话通话中，“他总会表现出，他和许多地区领导人一样，面临着同一个问题——无法设想该如何与其他关键团体及选民阵营分享权力。”