他们擅长的就是战斗。对沙特阿拉伯的升级是确定的。格雷姆·伍德 昨天，也门胡塞武装发射的一枚导弹击中了利雅得的哈立德国王国际机场，造成13人死亡，数百人受伤。上周的袭击已造成另外四人死亡。由于沙特阿拉伯多年来一直试图摆脱其严苛和不适的声誉，一个无菌、乏味、糕点昂贵、照明刺眼的机场被视为国家成就。
此次袭击将该机场变成一片混乱，地面布满血迹，休息区弥漫着浓烟。胡塞武装军方发言人宣布，这些袭击将以对等方式继续——即“机场对机场，围困对围困，升级对升级”——直至胡塞武装实现其公开目标：美国、以色列及其盟友的“死亡”，以及伊斯兰教的末日胜利。换句话说，升级是确定的。胡塞武装今天再次袭击了利雅得机场。
What they do well is fight. Escalation against Saudi Arabia is assured.
沙特阿拉伯在过去十年的自我转型过程中，用更为务实的本地目标取代了宇宙般的宏大愿景——即将逊尼派伊斯兰教传播到全世界。这些本地目标包括在吉达开设特色咖啡馆，以及在利雅得举办职业摔角比赛。（在未来几周，沙特阿拉伯最引人注目的两项国际活动将是一场投资会议和世界摔角娱乐公司的“王冠之 jewel”。）
By Graeme Wood Yesterday in Riyadh, a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis struck King Khalid International Airport, killed 13 people, and wounded hundreds more. Attacks in the previous week had killed four others. Because Saudi Arabia has been trying for years to shed its reputation for austerity and discomfort, a sterile, boring airport with overpriced pastries and harsh lighting is a national accomplishment.
人们可以想象，当沙特人试图摆脱全球宗教统治的游戏时，他们所感受到的挫败感——因为一个比他们更加狂热的邻居正把他们拉回原点。胡塞武装“正在执行一项神圣使命”，也门独立研究员纳德瓦·达萨里去年曾这样告诉我。她说，这一使命是“让战争继续下去，至少直到耶路撒冷”。对他们而言，谈判只是战术性的拖延，以便他们能够重新开战并战斗得更激烈。“他们为什么要接受协议，而他们本来就能得到一切？”
The strike turned that airport into chaos, its floors streaked with blood and lounges billowing with smoke. The Houthi military spokesman announced that the attacks would continue on a reciprocal basis—“airport for airport, siege for siege, and escalation for escalation”—until the Houthis achieve their stated goals: the “death” of America, Israel, and their allies, and an apocalyptic victory for Islam. Escalation, in other words, is assured. The Houthis hit the Riyadh airport again today.
本周早些时候，胡塞武装领导人阿卜杜勒-马利克·胡塞发表了一篇典型的冗长谴责，主要指责沙特阿拉伯做了他们自己刚刚公开做的事情——即针对平民。这场持续十年的冲突确实以一系列长期的暴行特征著称。阿卜杜勒-马利克列举了所谓的沙特对婚礼、葬礼和住宅的袭击——死亡人数远超利雅得导弹袭击的规模——并得出结论，沙特人根本不是穆斯林，而是“犹太复国主义者”，他们追随“撒旦”。
Saudi Arabia’s ongoing self-transformation during the past decade has involved trading cosmic goals—the spread of Sunni Islam over the world—for more modest local ones, such as opening specialty coffee shops in Jeddah and hosting pro-wrestling contests in Riyadh. (The two most prominent international events in the coming weeks in Saudi Arabia are an investment conference and World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Crown Jewel.”) One can imagine the frustration that Saudis feel, just as they try to exit the game of global religious domination, to be pulled back in by a neighbor far more zealous than they ever were. The Houthis “are on a divine mission,” Nadwa Al-Dawsari, an independent Yemeni researcher, told me last year.
他提到了对泰兹一个市场的袭击，并表示“绝对没有理由针对这样一个地方”，因为“那是一个市场，而非军事营地”。
That mission, she said, is to “keep the war going, at least until Jerusalem.”Negotiation, for them, consists of tactical delay, so they can resume the fight and fight harder. “Why would they want a deal when they can get everything?”
利雅得的机场也是一个民用目标，但我想，由于胡塞武装认为自己正在与撒旦作战，他们愿意原谅自己的虚伪。
Earlier this week the Houthis’ leader, Abd al-Malik al-Houthi, delivered a typically long-winded denunciation of the Saudis. He devoted the bulk of it to condemning the Saudis for doing exactly what the Houthis have just done openly: targeting civilians. This decade-long conflict has indeed been characterized by a lengthy series of atrocities. Abd al-Malik listed alleged Saudi attacks against weddings, funerals, and homes—the total death toll far exceeding the missiles in Riyadh—and concluded that the Saudis were not Muslims at all but “Zionists” who follow “Satan.”He mentioned an attack on a market in Taiz, and said “there is absolutely no justification for targeting such a place,” because “it was a market, not a military camp.”
（在这里，你可以看到一群为前往麦加朝圣而装扮的旅行者被吹倒在地。）从胡塞武装崛起的整个过程可以清楚地看出，正如阿尔-道萨里所建议的那样，他们不愿进行谈判，更别说离开或进入胡塞领导人所描述的“与也门人民的荣誉和平”——这种和平“基于良好的邻里关系和相互尊重”。明智的沙特领导人应该安抚或加入胡塞武装，他说，但相反，“他们遵循撒旦的道路。”伊朗一定很高兴。
Riyadh’s airport is also a civilian target, but I suppose because the Houthis think they are fighting Satan, they are willing to excuse their own hypocrisy. (Here you can watch a group of travelers, dressed for pilgrimage to Mecca, blown off their feet.) What’s clear from the entire arc of the Houthis’ rise is that they are, as Al-Dawsari suggested, unwilling to negotiate, let alone go away or enter into what the Houthi leader describes as “an honourable peace with the Yemeni people,” “founded on good neighborly relations and mutual respect.”Sensible Saudi leaders would appease or join the Houthis, he said, but instead “they follow the Satanic approach.”Iran must be happy.
最近，特朗普一直在炫耀霍尔木兹海峡重新开放，如今该海峡的石油交通流量已恢复到接近战前水平。但整个伊朗“抵抗轴心”——包括胡塞武装、伊拉克什叶派民兵、哈马斯和真主党的协调集团——正如一位美国官员对我所说的那样，原本旨在成为一个可以弹奏许多音符的键盘，其节奏能够让美国及其盟友跟不上节拍。以色列在2025年对伊朗的初步袭击是试图击毙钢琴手。
Recently, Donald Trump has taken to gloating about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which now flows with oil traffic at near prewar rates. But the entire Iranian “Axis of Resistance”—the coordinate group including the Houthis, Iraqi Shiite militias, Hamas, and Hezbollah—was meant, as one American official put it to me, to be a keyboard on which many notes could be played, with rhythms able to keep the United States and its allies off the beat. Israel’s initial attacks against Iran in 2025 were an attempt to shoot the piano player.
伊朗不仅幸存下来，还吹嘘自己拥有众多可供选择的目标。这绝非巧合：就在特朗普上周为自己打开海峡而自鸣得意时，美国轰炸机因有关英格兰RAF Fairford基地可能遭伊朗袭击的威胁报告而被迫紧急起飞。
Iran has not only survived but also bragged that it has a surfeit of targets to select from. It is not a coincidence that just as Trump was congratulating himself for opening the strait last week, U.S. bombers had to scramble off the tarmac because of reported threats of an Iranian attack at RAF Fairford in England.
沙特王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼以反复无常的决策而闻名——突如其来的、似乎出于一时冲动的计划，要在特定行业大规模投资，或是挑衅邻国，或是压制甚至杀害他统治下的某些批评者。这种声誉并非完全公平。他在追求经济发展方面一直保持一致，而且确实合理：他首要的目标是寻求一条不受战争或动荡影响的经济发展之路。
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has a reputation for erratic decisions—sudden, apparently whim-driven plans to invest heavily in particular sectors, to pick fights with neighbors, or to oppress or kill this or that critic of his rule. This reputation is not entirely fair. He has been consistent, and indeed reasonable, in seeking, above all else, a path toward economic development uninterrupted by war or tumult.
胡塞武装的这次行动主要效果就是破坏这条道路。胡塞武装通过他们唯一擅长的事情——战斗——正在劫持沙特阿拉伯的转型进程。目前看来，似乎没有人有足够的战争意愿来阻止他们。
The main effect of this campaign by the Houthis is to disrupt that path. The Houthis are holding Saudi Arabia’s transition hostage by doing the only thing they have ever done successfully: fighting. It is not obvious that anyone has enough of a corresponding appetite for war to stop them.