【经济学人】白芝浩专栏 - 英国脱欧应该从伊拉克战争中吸取教训 [英国媒体]

Bagehot
Lessons for Brexit from the invasion of Iraq

英国脱欧应该从伊拉克战争中吸取教训

The parallels between Brexiteers and the American neocons who pushed for the Iraq war

脱欧派和支持发动伊拉克战争的美国新保守主义者之间的共同点



Aug 3rd 2017  

2017年8月3日

ONE of the striking things about the Brexiteers is how keen they are on history. Many studied it at university, usually Oxford: Bill Cash, John Redwood and Chris Grayling from the older generation and Daniel Hannan, Dominic Cummings and Douglas Carswell from the younger. They rest their argument for Brexit as much on historical exceptionalism as on economic logic. Britain is simply too different from continental European powers, with their Napoleonic codes and Verfassungspatriotismus, to fit in. And they relish historical parallels: between Brexit and Henry VIII’s break with Rome; between the Brexiteers and the anti-Corn Law activists who destroyed 19th-century England’s equivalent of the Common Agricultural Policy; and between the legislation that will translate European law into British law and the 1832 Great Reform Act. Nigel Farage, the least cerebral of the Brexiteers, has encouraged young Britons to see “Dunkirk”, a new film, to stiffen their spines for the struggle ahead.

对脱欧派来说，最重要的事情是，是他们对于历史的理解能力。脱欧派中许多人曾就读于牛津之类的名校：年长一辈的有比尔·卡什、约翰·雷德伍德和克里斯·格雷林，年青一代的有丹尼尔·汉南、多米尼克·卡明斯和道格拉斯·卡斯维尔等，他们所仰仗的脱欧论据为历史特殊论和经济逻辑学。英国的现行制度，与那些采用诸如《拿破仑法典》和《宪法爱国主义》治国的欧洲大陆诸强相比，的确不尽相同，脱欧派据此鼓吹：脱欧就相当于亨利八世和罗马教廷决裂；脱欧派人士就相当于废除了英国19世纪公共农业政策的“反谷物法“活动人士；而将欧盟法律转换为英国本土法律的立法行为，就相当于1832年下议院席位改革法案。而脱欧派中最无脑的奈杰尔·法拉奇更是鼓励年轻人去看新上映的电影《敦刻尔克》，美其名曰：”挺起脊梁为脱欧事业努力奋斗“

Bagehot would like to point to a more recent historical analogy: between the Brexiteers and the American neoconservatives who persuaded George W. Bush to invade Iraq. The comparison might sound provocative—a bloody war and a peaceful referendum differ hugely. Nevertheless, striking parallels exist between the way that the neoconservatives and the Brexiteers think about the world. Indeed, there is even an overlap in personnel. Michael Gove wrote an essay on “the very British roots of neoconservatism and its lessons for British conservatives”, and Liam Fox is a familiar figure in Washington’s neocon circles.

但和这些脱欧派的理论相比，我刊想要指出的是，或许有一起离我们更近的历史事件，更可适合拿来作参照物：把脱欧派和当年说服小布什发动伊拉克战争的美国新保守主义者来作比较。这个比喻可能带有一丝挑衅，把一场血腥战争和一次和平公投相比，差异悬殊，然而新保守主义者和脱欧派对世界形势的理解相互之间却存在惊人的类似，甚至就个性上来说有着本质的重合。譬如环境大臣迈克尔·戈夫就曾写过一篇短文，提及“新保守主义植根于英国，英国保守党应引以为鉴”，而国际贸易大臣利亚姆·福克斯更是为美国政府的新保守主义圈中人士所熟识

The neoconservatives were a group of maverick intellectuals who exercised influence out of all proportion to their numbers. Ditto the Brexiteers. The neocons worked their magic by focusing on a single aim (regime change in the Middle East, starting with Iraq) and pursuing it with tireless energy. Ditto again. The Brexiteers are in some ways more remarkable than the neocons, who had only to outmanoeuvre the American defence-and-intelligence establishment, which preferred containment to regime change. The Brexiteers had to outmanoeuvre their own side. The young ones understood that Brexit was doomed so long as it was associated with ageing monomaniacs like Bill Cash, and flame-flowing populists like Nigel Farage. They were as brilliantly ruthless in sidelining their soulmates as they were in outmanoeuvring their opponents, meeting in Tate Britain because they knew that nobody from the Westminster village would ever go there.

新保守主义者都是一群特立独行的知识分子，发挥着与他们人数完全不相称的影响力，脱欧派也是一样。新保守主义者花大力气致力于一个纯粹的目标（如颠覆中东国家政权，发动伊拉克战争等），再次与脱欧派吻合。当然，和仅仅想要操控美国国防和情报网络体系的新保守主义者相比，脱欧派在某些地方有过之而无不及，与改朝换代相比，他们也更喜欢对他国采取围堵政策。脱欧派首先得从内部斗个高低，年轻一代的脱欧派认为，只要脱欧事业和年长的偏执狂如比尔·卡什、风风火火的民粹份子像奈杰尔·法拉吉等人搅和在一起就会搞砸，他们冷酷无情地和老同志们划清了界限，就如同对待外部“敌人”一样，年轻者们将聚会地点选择在泰特英国美术馆，因为他们知道年长的威斯敏斯特乡巴佬们是不会去那里的。

All very impressive. But the parallels also have a darker hue. The neoconservatives sold the Iraq war on the basis of dodgy claims about weapons of mass destruction and direct links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The Brexiteers sold Brexit on the basis of dodgy claims about giving “our NHS the ￡350m the EU takes every week”. The neoconservatives insisted that regime change in Iraq would be easy—and would set off a chain reaction across the Middle East. Kenneth Adelman called it a “cakewalk”. Kanan Makiya, a leader of the Iraqi National Congress, predicted that American troops would be “greeted with sweets and flowers”. Brexiteers have made strikingly similar claims about an easy divorce leading to a chain reaction across Europe. Boris Johnson justified his belief that Britain could leave the EU while preserving all the benefits of membership on the grounds that his “policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it”.

这些举动都让人印象深刻，但有光必有影，新保守主义者在大规模杀伤性武器和萨达姆政权与基地组织关系上闪烁其词，凭此发动了伊拉克战争，而脱欧派同样地大言炎炎宣称：“脱欧将会给国民医疗系统每周带来3亿5千万英镑的额外资金”；新保守主义者坚称，伊拉克政权更替易如反掌，将会给中东世界带来连锁反应，譬如肯尼斯·阿德尔曼称其为“不费吹灰之力”，彼时的伊拉克反对党“伊拉克国民大会”的领导人卡南·马基雅曾预言：“迎接美军的将是糖果和鲜花。” 脱欧派也有过类似的言论，他们宣称在顺利脱欧的同时，会引起欧盟解体的连锁反应，譬如鲍里斯·约翰逊就曾把他的脱欧政策称为“鱼与熊掌，两者兼得”，他觉得英国可以在脱欧后还享有一切身为欧盟成员国的权益，这是理所当然。

In both cases overconfidence led to a lamentable lack of planning. The Americans were so certain that Iraqis wanted regime change that they did not plan for prolonged resistance or social breakdown (John Bolton suggested that, having deposed Saddam, the Americans could give the Iraqis a copy of the Federalist Papersand scarper). The Brexiteers are so sure that Britain’s destiny lies outside the EU that they have not planned for the sheer difficulty of undoing 45 years of legislation. Charles Moore argued in the Spectator during the Brexit campaign that “it is crucial to the ‘leave’ cause that it resist the temptation to set out a plan”. One of the best books on the Iraq war is entitled “Fiasco”. The title could well suit an account of Britain’s Brexit negotiations.

在很多时候，过分自信而缺乏谋划会导致可悲的结局，美国的新保守主义者太过确信伊拉克人民希望萨达姆下台，所以他们并未考虑到伊拉克境内的长期抵抗运动和社会体系崩塌带来的后果（约翰·博尔顿曾建议，罢黜了萨达姆后，美国只要扔给伊拉克议会一本《联邦主义者文集》后就能功成身退），而脱欧派对于英国脱欧后的命运太过自信，他们也忽略了取消那些已经被执行了45年的欧盟律法的难度，譬如在发起脱欧运动时，查尔斯·摩尔曾在《旁观者》杂志上发文呼吁“必须要脱欧啊，舍不得孩子套不住狼。” 一本名叫《惨败》的书或许是最好的诠释伊拉克战争的书籍之一，这个标题也同样适用于目前英国在脱欧谈判上获得的“成就”

Philip Hammond, Britain’s chancellor, is doing his best to tame Brexit, much as Colin Powell tried to tame the Iraq war. He is urging a “long transition” of two or three years after Britain leaves the EU during which trading relations will remain much as they are and Britain will continue to pay into the European budget much as it does now. He has ruled out adopting “the Singapore option” of radically reducing taxes and regulations. He has also argued that “literally nobody” wants to see a dramatic fall in migration immediately after Brexit. Prominent Labour figures, such as Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, also want continuity, arguing that Britain should remain a member of the single market.

财政大臣菲利普·哈蒙德正在努力使脱欧进程变得更平滑，正如当年科林·鲍威尔试图就伊拉克战争进行斡旋一样。哈蒙德督促各方允许英国在脱欧后有2年或3年的过渡期，在过渡期间英国在继续承担欧盟成员国预算的同时享有原先的贸易便利，他也排除了英国采用“新加坡模式”大幅降低关税和修改税则的可能，除此之外，哈蒙德还呼吁道”真的没有人“希望英国在脱欧后一刀切地拒绝移民。除了哈蒙德之外，一些工党中的杰出人士，如伦敦市长萨迪克·汗，也希望英国能可持续发展，他呼吁英国应该保持单一市场成员国地位

Look back in anger  

《愤怒的回顾》

Perhaps these moderates have hit on a formula that will allow Britain to disentangle itself painlessly from Europe. But William Hague, a former Tory leader, is probably closer to the truth when he worries that Brexit may become “the occasion of the greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK”. Both the main parties are split over crucial questions such as membership of the single market. When Parliament returns, the government faces weeks of angry debates and nail-biting votes over the “Great Repeal Bill”. In the longer term it will probably face a rebellion by Conservative ultras who would rather see their party destroyed than Brexit diluted.

也许这些稳健派在歪打正着下发现了使英国摆脱脱欧阵痛的良方。保守党前领导人威廉·黑格或许更接近于事情的真相，他担心脱欧会变成“近代英国经济、外交、宪法制度最最混乱的历史时期”，所有主要党派在诸如单一市场成员的关键问题上都存在严重分歧，当议会夏季休会期结束后，政府将迎来数周的激烈辩论和令人窒息的“大废除法案”投票，在很长一段时期内，政府将会可能面临保守党内一些极端主义者在某些投票上的背叛，他们宁可党毁人亡也不愿意在某些脱欧问题上妥协

The real problem with the Brexiteers is that they don’t spend enough time studying history. Since the mid-17th century the British have had a marked suspicion of radical change. They prefer their revolutions to be “glorious”—that is directed from above and dedicated to gradual change. And they insist that the popular opinion should be qualified and diluted by constitutional constraints. Leaps in the dark are supposed to be for

脱欧派的真正问题是他们不懂得以史为鉴，自17世纪中叶以来，英国人民已发生了显着变化，他们更倾向于“光荣革命”似的温和变革---即所谓自上而下的逐渐改革，人民希望任何舆论政见应合乎章程并受宪法约束，冒昧行事不是英国人的传统