譯／周辰陽
道德掛帥在中東的界限
Foreign policy can make a mockery of moral certitude. You’re trying to master a landscape of anarchy policed by violence, where ideological differences make American polarization look like genial neighborliness, where even a superpower’s ability to impose its will dissolves with distance, where any grand project requires alliances with tyranny and worse.
外交政策可以讓道德確定性顯得荒謬。你正在試圖掌握一片暴力管理的無政府景色，意識形態分歧的激烈程度讓美國的兩極化看上去就像敦親睦鄰，即使超級大國，強加其意志的能力也因距離而遞減，任何宏偉計畫都需跟暴君與更糟的人合作。
This seems clear when you consider the dilemmas of the past. It’s why the “good war” of World War II involved a partnership with a monster in Moscow and the subjection of half of Europe to totalitarian oppression. It’s why the “bad war” of Vietnam was only escaped at the cost of betraying the South Vietnamese and making a deal with yet another monster in Beijing.
當你考慮過去的困境，這似乎顯而易見。這就是第二次世界大戰的「良善之戰」為什麼牽涉跟莫斯科的怪物合作，以及半個歐洲屈從極權主義的壓迫。這就是越南的「亂七八糟之戰」為什麼只能以背叛南越，並跟另一個怪物（北京）做交易為代價，才得以擺脫。
But in active controversies the tragic vision can seem like a cold way of looking at the world. Lean into it too hard, and you get accused of ignoring injustice or recapitulating the indifference that gave cover to past atrocities.
但是，在現行的爭議中，悲劇性觀點可能看起來像是一種冷眼觀察世界的方式。太傾向這種觀點，你會被控忽視不公正，或是再現掩護過去殘暴行為的漠不關心。
Sometimes those accusations have some bite. A “realist” foreign policy can slide from describing power to excusing depredations. It can underestimate the power of a righteous cause — as I underestimated, for instance, Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself in 2022.
有時候，這些指控有強烈的影響。「現實主義」的外交政策可以從描述權力淪陷到替掠奪開脫，它可能低估正義的力量。舉例來說，正如我低估了烏克蘭2022年的自我防衛能力。
But seeing statecraft as a tragic balancing of evils is still essential, especially amid the kind of moral fervor that attends a conflict like Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. The alternative is a form of argument in which essential aspects of the world, being inconvenient to moral absolutism, simply disappear.
但是，視治國才能為一種悲劇性的邪惡平衡仍很重要，特別是在那種混雜了道德狂熱的衝突，像是以色列的加薩走廊之戰。另一個選擇是一種論證形式，在其中與道德絕對主義不符的世界的重要層面完全消失。
Then a similar point applies to supporters of the Israeli war, for whom moral considerations — the evil of Hamas, the historical suffering of the Jewish people, the special American relationship with Israel — are invoked as an argument-ender in an inflexible way.
類似的論點適用於以色列戰爭的支持者，對他們而言，道德上的考量，即哈瑪斯的邪惡、猶太民族的歷史苦難、美國與以色列的特殊關係，最後雙方都是鐵板一塊，結束討論。
Biden’s specific attempts to micromanage the conflict may be misguided or hamfisted. But it’s not misguided for America, an imperium dealing with multiplying threats, to decline to write a blank check for a war being waged without a clear plan for victory or for peace.
拜登微觀管理這場衝突的一些具體嘗試，可能出於被誤導或是笨手笨腳。但是，對於美國，一個處理倍增威脅的最高權力，拒絕為一場正被發動，沒有明確勝利或和平計畫的戰爭寫下一張空白支票，並不是被誤導。
Being cold-eyed and tragic-minded does not mean abandoning morality. But it means recognizing that often nobody is simply right, no single approach is morally obvious, and no strategy is clean.
不流露情感跟有悲劇性傾向，並不意味放棄道德。但意味著承認，通常沒有人是完全正確，沒有單一方法是道德上顯而易見，沒有戰略是乾淨的。
