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New friends race to end an old war（原文译为：好兄弟不相帮）
【由于文章较长(共13段呢)，本人自作主张在每段之前加了序号。我自己翻译了（1）-（6）段[详见一楼]，差不多有一半吧，以供参考；剩下的（7）-（13）段留待其他热心童鞋[可具体标注翻译段落的序号，以免重复翻译]。本文源自FT中文网。第一次发帖，选了一个关于国际形势的，可能对大家关于国际政治背景的了解程度有要求[我自己就是因为不太懂，所以有些翻译很是拿捏不准]，另外，我没有回头检查我的翻译，因为来不及了，楼主这会得回去睡觉了，还得自己暖床；所以嘛，欢迎拍砖。】
(1)In Washington this week a president and a prime minister declared victory even as they admitted defeat. The US and Britain are getting out of Afghanistan. The rush for the exit is becoming a race. “We’ve been there for 10 years and people get weary,” Barack Obama said. “People want an end game,” Britain’s David Cameron chipped in. What happens next in that benighted country is, well, a problem for the Afghans.
(2)Mr Cameron used to shun talk of the special relationship between London and Washington. His predecessors had been supine. This prime minister was going to be no one’s poodle. Proximity to real power, though, is intoxicating. Misplaced pride melts away. Never mind talk of American decline; for the leader of a middle-ranking ally clinging precariously to past glories nothing beats swanking with the most powerful politician on earth.
(3)The warmth of the presidential welcome was striking. If only Mr Cameron’s aides could keep quiet. “I’m embarrassed for you,” an American friend said after British officials had gushed with adolescent glee about the prime minister’s brief flight with Mr Obama on Air Force One. Apparently it was a first for a foreign leader. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, Downing Street boasted, had got nothing more than a trip to a local hot dog stand. School playgrounds come to mind.（内涵啊，我不太懂。）
(4)The serious business of the encounter revolved around the terms of Nato’s retreat from Afghanistan. On this the two leaders share the same impatience: the sooner the better. If there are differences, they are about precise timing and choreography. Mr Cameron was caught unawares when the Pentagon advanced its departure schedule. The British do not want to be a single step behind the US. The Americans do not want Britain to run ahead.
(5)The formal timetable was set a couple of years ago at a Nato summit. The alliance’s combat troops are to leave by the end of 2014. The US administration, however, intends to front-load the process, handing the lead combat role to the Afghan national army by mid-2013. This would allow an accelerated drawdown of the 90,000-strong American force. Britain does not want its 9,500 troops left exposed to the inevitable Taliban resurgence in southern Afghanistan. The deal in Washington seems to be that they will both come out faster. The exit strategy, as Henry Kissinger has observed, has become all exit and no strategy. Many would say the two men are simply owning up to reality. If the war was ever winnable, it was lost when the US decided to invade Iraq. The Taliban went missing and were mistakenly presumed dead.
(6)Unsurprisingly, voters on both sides of the Atlantic have turned against the conflict – just as with Iraq. A US election looms. Never-say-die conservatives such as Republican Rick Santorum are questioning whether anything resembling victory is any longer possible.
(7)A violent Afghan reaction to the burning of copies of the Koran by US troops, and a murderous attack on Afghan civilians by a serving US soldier have crystallised doubts. The law of diminishing returns has set in: the presence of Nato troops has become the problem.
(8)To this can be added the strategic truth that the Taliban could never be defeated as long as Pakistan refuses to deny the insurgents sanctuary on its side of the border. The US has not found a way to break Pakistan’s determination to see Afghanistan as a vital piece in its eternal struggle with India. The news from Kabul is scarcely better. Hamid Karzai’s government is irredeemably corrupt and as mistrusted by many ordinary Afghans as foreigners.
(9)Mr Obama observed the other day that the killing of Osama bin Laden and the severe damage inflicted on al-Qaeda leadership have robbed the occupation of its rationale. In this he was catching up with the long-held view of his intelligence advisers. The international terrorist threat it is now more dangerously rooted in places such a Yemen and Somalia. As for noble ambitions to uphold democracy and human rights in Afghanistan – well they were discarded some time ago.
(10)Missing in all this depressing logic, is any sense of what Nato will leave behind. We know the Pentagon wants to retain an anti-terrorist capability on Afghan soil. Beyond that? A year or so ago Washington promised a “political surge” to forge some sort of accommodation with the Taliban. US diplomats have been working hard to that end. But talking about a “responsible wind-down”, as did Mr Obama this week, is no substitute for a serious effort at the top to achieve something resembling a regional political settlement. Neither president nor prime minister seems ready to expend the energy.
(11)It is not just Afghanistan. Something of this nothing-to-be-done weariness percolated their talks about Syria. This week marked the first anniversary of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression. Civilians are still being murdered daily. Mr Obama and Mr Cameron wring their hands in unison.
(12)Iran is different. Here the relationship has yet to be tested. President and prime minister do not want Israel to launch an early strike against Iran’s nuclear installations. They also happen to share what could be politely described as a distinctly low opinion of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr Netanyahu is viewed as a small man trying to fill the shoes of a big leader – and is dangerous for that.
(13)Mr Obama, though, seems to mean what he says. If sanctions and diplomacy fail then he will indeed send in US missiles and warplanes. After the salutary experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, would Mr Cameron join him in another Middle East war?
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