According to reports, the hedge fund Elliott Management defended the Iran war in a note to investors last month. In particular, it argued against the liberal cliché that “force alone” cannot defeat an idea. Weren’t Nazism and Japanese imperialism both bombed out of existence in 1945? Did democratic constitutions not take their place? Might the same therefore not happen in theocratic Iran? On that basis, who but a churl or a pacifist would refuse to give war a chance?
据媒体报道，对冲基金埃利奥特管理公司(Elliott Management)上月在一份发给投资者的简报中为伊朗战争辩护。那份简报特别驳斥了“仅靠武力无法击败一种思想”这一自由派陈词滥调。纳粹主义和日本帝国主义不是都在1945年被击败了吗？它们不是都被民主宪法取而代之了吗？那么，同样的事情难道就不会在神权统治的伊朗重演吗？基于这一逻辑，除了吝啬鬼与和平主义者之外，谁会拒绝给战争一个机会？
It is hard to know where to begin with this, but here are two important differences between the second world war and the current crisis.
面对这种谬论，想反驳都有点不知从何说起，但以下是二战与当前危机之间的两个重要不同点。
First, the German and Japanese regimes were aggressors. What tainted their ideologies forever was not just the defeat but the moral stigma of having started the war in the first place. Defeat on its own isn’t enough to discredit an idea. Otherwise, democracy would never have recovered in the Netherlands or France after the military capitulations of 1940. As it turned out, both countries were democratic again within the decade. It is guilt that tarnishes an idea, not the fact of losing. The Iranian regime, for all its direct and proxy aggression, did not start the specific war of 2026. There was no equivalent of Pearl Harbor or the invasion of Poland as original sin. (We will come back to matters biblical later.)
首先，当年的德国和日本政权是侵略者。导致其意识形态背上永久污名的不仅仅是战败，还有挑起战争的道德耻辱。战败本身并不足以彻底否定一种理念。否则荷兰和法国在1940年军事投降后就永远无法恢复民主制度。事实是这两个国家都在十年内恢复了民主制度。让一种理念沾染上污名的是罪责，而非战败本身。伊朗政权尽管有各种直接和通过代理人的侵略行为，但它并没有发动2026年的战争。这个伊斯兰共和国没有犯下突袭珍珠港或入侵波兰那样的原罪。（本文稍后会回到圣经层面的事项。）