在中期选举取得压倒性胜利后，国会民主党人承诺通过停止拨款来“终止”一场在中东不受欢迎的战争。听起来很耳熟吗？应该如此：2006年，民主党在给乔治·W·布什总统带来选举“惨败”后，也曾承诺就伊拉克战争采取同样的做法。当时的民主党总统竞选主要候选人，包括巴拉克·奥巴马、希拉里·克林顿和乔·拜登，都提出了各自的法案，将继续为战争提供资金与美国在特定时间内撤军挂钩。
Fresh off a sweeping midterm election victory, congressional Democrats have pledged to “end” an unpopular war in the Middle East by defunding it. Sound familiar? It should: that’s exactly what Democrats promised to do regarding the Iraq War in 2006 after delivering an electoral “thumping” to President George W. Bush. Leading Democratic presidential contenders like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all put forward their own bills that conditioned continued funding for the war on some sort of U.S. withdrawal within a specific time frame.
但20年前将美国从一场愚蠢、错误的战争中抽出来，远比说出来容易——尤其是对国会而言。今天也是如此。
But extracting the United States from a foolish, misbegotten war 20 years ago proved far easier said than done — especially for Congress. And the same is true today.
2006年中期选举后，布什选择升级战争，向伊拉克增派数万名美军，而国会停止为战争拨款的努力却毫无进展。这些额外的美军部队帮助平息了暴力，使布什得以与伊拉克政府谈判达成撤军协议，奥巴马后来于2011年完成了这一协议。但在伊斯兰国血腥崛起之后，美军于2014年返回伊拉克，并一直驻扎在那里，直到去年9月。
After the 2006 midterms, Bush chose instead to escalate the war and surged tens of thousands of American troops to Iraq — all while congressional efforts to defund the war went nowhere. These additional U.S. troops helped tamp down the violence enough for Bush to negotiate a withdrawal agreement with the Iraqi government, a deal Obama later consummated in 2011. But after the bloody rise of the Islamic State, U.S. troops returned in 2014 and maintained a presence in Iraq until this past September.
诚然，当今的情况与二十年前截然不同：民主党在国会两院已经拥有更大的多数席位，而且与伊拉克不同，与伊朗的战争从未获得过公众支持。但战略利害关系更高：唐纳德·特朗普总统发动一场没有明确目标、也没有明显理由的战争，使霍尔木兹海峡——世界上最重要的水道之一——受制于德黑兰的敌对政权。停止对美国在海湾地区作战行动的拨款，将使该海峡实际上落入该政权的控制之下。
Granted, today’s circumstances differ markedly from those that prevailed two decades ago: Democrats already have much larger majorities in both houses of Congress, and unlike Iraq, the war with Iran has never commanded public support. But the strategic stakes are higher: President Donald Trump’s decision to start a war with no clear goals and for no discernible reason has left the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most vital waterways — at the mercy of a hostile regime in Tehran. Defunding American combat operations in the gulf would leave the strait under the regime’s effective control.
尽管中东能源生产国计划修建管道绕过该海峡，但这些项目需要时间才能完工，无法完全取代这条水道，并且仍然容易受到伊朗及其代理人的袭击。伊朗将永久掐住全球商业的关键动脉，同时严重破坏美国长期奉行的海洋自由原则。
Though Middle East energy producers are planning to build pipelines to bypass the strait, these projects will take time to complete, cannot completely replace the waterway and remain vulnerable to attacks from Iran and its proxies. Iran will have a permanent stranglehold over a critical artery of global commerce while grievously undermining the long-held American principle of the freedom of the seas.
削减资金也并不能保证就能“结束”战争。如果不与德黑兰达成某种谈判协议，只要该政权认为合适，战斗随时可能重启。国会任何资金限制的具体性质也引发实际问题：留在波斯湾及其周边的美军能否使用武力自卫，以抵御伊朗的袭击？取消这笔资金是否要求美军完全撤离该地区？如果德黑兰对通过该海峡的海上交通收取通行费，并攻击拒绝付费的船只，该怎么办？等等。
Nor is there any guarantee that cuts to funding would actually “end” the war. Without some sort of negotiated agreement with Tehran, fighting could resume whenever the regime sees fit. The precise nature of any congressional funding restrictions raises practical questions as well: would American forces remaining in and around the gulf be able to use force to defend themselves against Iranian attacks? Would this elimination of funding require the U.S. military to leave the region entirely? What if Tehran charges tolls on seaborne traffic through the strait and attacks ships that refuse to pay? And so on.
此外，如果民主党成功切断战争资金，只会稀释特朗普本人对可能是美国历史上最大战略失误的个人责任。这场与伊朗的战争在美国民众中深受不欢迎，目前他们正确地将全部责任归于特朗普。与其让特朗普独自承担这场战略灾难的全部责任，民主党反而可能自己承担部分责任。特朗普的死忠支持者和机会主义的共和党人很可能会把这种责任转化为一种有害的神话：一个不忠诚的民主党国会从胜利的口中夺走了屈辱的失败。
If Democrats successfully cut off war funding, moreover, they would only dilute Trump’s own personal liability for perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in American history. The war with Iran remains deeply unpopular with the American people, and right now they correctly hold Trump entirely responsible for it. Rather than leaving Trump to take all responsibility for this strategic disaster, Democrats risk assuming some of that liability themselves. Trump dead-enders and opportunistic Republicans will likely turn that element of culpability into a pernicious myth: that a perfidious Democratic Congress snatched a humiliating defeat from the jaws of victory.
如果一些外交政策分析人士所说的，与伊朗的战争已经真正输了，那么最好还是确保特朗普独自承担这场灾难的全部责任，而不是将其分散出去。
If the Iran war is already truly lost, as some foreign policy analysts say it is, better to make sure that Trump takes complete blame for the catastrophe than spread it around.
结果是，民主党所处的政治处境比他们似乎意识到的要危险得多。不过，在战争问题上，民主党仍有可能鱼和熊掌兼得。特朗普大概率会否决任何试图限制他对伊朗使用武力能力的尝试，即便在上周席卷性的民主党胜利之后，他们在国会两院获得推翻否决所需的三分之二多数票的可能性也微乎其微。这让民主党面临不堪的政治选择：因该问题导致政府停摆，尝试谈判一些较小的限制，或者接受暂时的失败。
As a result, Democrats are in a far more precarious political position than they seem to realize. Still, it’s possible that Democrats will be able to have their cake and eat it, too, when it comes to the war. Trump will likely veto any attempt to restrict his ability to use military force against Iran, and even with last week’s sweeping Democratic victories, it’s unlikely that they will muster the two-thirds majorities required in both houses of Congress to override it. That leaves Democrats with unenviable political alternatives: shut down the government over the issue, try and negotiate some lesser restrictions or accept temporary defeat.
如果他们接受暂时的失败——无论是否对特朗普在中东开战的能力施加一些限制——民主党都可以可信地声称，他们已经尽力“结束战争”，而无需对战争结果承担任何责任，哪怕只是部分责任。
If they accept temporary defeat — with or without some curbs on Trump’s ability to wage war in the Middle East — Democrats can credibly claim to have done what they could to “end the war” without accepting any responsibility, however partial, for its outcome.
还有其他有前途的方式，可以让这个政府为其深思不虑、无法取胜的战争承担责任。例如，众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯——他很可能成为下一任议长——已支持弹劾国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯的努力，相关委员会应当对负责中东军事行动的美国中央司令部进行更大范围、更严格的监督（中央司令部司令布拉德·库珀海军上将，莫名其妙地认为现在是推出播客的合适时机）。
And there are other promising ways to hold this administration accountable for its ill-conceived, unwinnable war. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who will likely be the next speaker, has backed efforts to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for instance, and relevant committees should exercise greater and stricter scrutiny of U.S. Central Command, which runs military operations in the Middle East (CENTCOM’s head, Adm. Brad Cooper, inexplicably decided now was the right time to launch a podcast).
不过，归根结底，根本问题依然存在：特朗普及其政府已将美国拖入一场既无法取胜、也无法承受失败的战争——而国会不能仅靠立法就结束它。
In the end, though, the fundamental problem remains that Trump and his administration have trapped the U.S. in a war it can neither win nor afford to lose — and Congress cannot simply legislate an end to it.