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Kyiv, 2023. Baghdad, 2003. Two very different places, engulfed in very different wars.
基辅, 2023年。巴格达, 2003。两个截然不同的地方，卷入了两场截然不同的战争。
Yet there’s an essential connection, brought into focus this week by the 20th anniversary of America’s ultimately disastrous invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
然而，这两者间存在本质联系，本周正值美国入侵萨达姆·侯赛因统治下的伊拉克（最终带来灾难性后果）20周年之际，这将人们的关注带到了这一联系上。
The most straightforward tie?
最直接的联系?
The long shadow of the Iraq War has colored every major policy decision President Joe Biden has made on Ukraine, ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin massed more than 100,000 troops on the border ahead of last year’s invasion.
自俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京去年入侵乌克兰前在俄乌边境集结10多万军队以来，伊拉克战争的长阴影就影响着美国总统乔·拜登对乌克兰问题做出的每一项重大政策决定。
The multiple ways in which America’s war in Iraq went wrong have made the war a kind of anti-how-to-do-it guide for U.S. involvement in conflicts abroad even two decades later.
美国在伊拉克战争中在方方面面出的问题，使其成为20年后美国卷入海外冲突中的一种“反对之事”指南。
That has been the easy lesson of the war.
这就是战争带给美国的简单教训。
A tougher challenge remains: resolving fundamental questions raised by the sheer scope of then-President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq – about America’s power, place, role, and responsibility in the wider world.
一个更严峻的挑战仍然存在: 解决时任总统乔治·布什发动伊拉克大规模战争所引发的根本性问题——关于美国在全球范围内的权力、地位、角色和责任问题。
Above all, that will mean revisiting a principle in international affairs that had been gathering force before the Iraq invasion.
最重要的是，这将意味着要重新审视一项在入侵伊拉克前就蓄力已久的国际事务原则。
For instance, the United States and Britain had used it to justify their use of force to halt the “ethnic cleansing” and wholesale war crimes in the 1990s war pitting Yugoslav forces against Albanians in Kosovo.
例如，美国和英国用这项原则来为他们使用武力辩护，目的是制止九十年代南斯拉夫军队在科索沃与阿尔巴尼亚人的战争中的“种族清洗”与大规模战争罪。
It was the notion that nations had a right, even a duty, to intervene on moral grounds – an idea later echoed in the 2005 endorsement by the United Nations of a “responsibility to protect” civilian victims of such atrocities.
这种观念认为各国有权利，甚至有义务，出于道德理由进行干预——这种观念后来与2005年联合国认可“有责任保护”受此类暴行伤害的平民的想法相呼应。
This was one of many strands in the decision-making process that led America to attack Iraq – a process that, as one New York Times writer has trenchantly detailed, remains opaque to this day.
这是导致美国攻打伊拉克的决策过程中的众多线索之一，正如《纽约时报》的一位撰稿人所详细描述的那样，这个决策过程直到今天仍难以理解。
So post-Iraq, is that notion, too, now part of the anti-how-to-do-it playbook?
那么，在伊拉克战争结束后，这一观念是否也成为了“反对如何做”策略的一部分?
Are there still situations in which values and principles might make geographically distant conflicts a matter of America’s national interest?
是否仍然存在这样的情况，即原则与价值观可能会使地理上相隔甚远的冲突成为美国的国家利益问题?
And can a post-Iraq president credibly make that case to voters in an increasingly divided, inward-looking America?
在一个日益四分五裂、日益关注内部问题的美国，一位后伊拉克时代的总统能可信地向选民证明这一点吗？
For now, at least, any and all aspects of the Iraq invasion seem to be a flashing red warning light.
至少就目前而言，入侵伊拉克的方方面面似乎都是一个闪烁的红色警示灯。
President Biden has clearly applied the “easy lessons” in Ukraine.
拜登总统显然在乌克兰问题上应用了这个“简单的教训”。
He has steered clear of the direct use of American military might.
他避免直接使用美国的军事力量。
In Iraq, overwhelming force – “shock and awe” – quickly defeated Saddam’s ill-matched military, but set the stage for years of violence and instability.
在伊拉克，美国压倒性的军队——“震慑”——迅速击败了萨达姆难以匹敌的军队，但这也为多年的暴力与动荡奠定了基础。
