Authoritarian politics and military aggression are a dangerous mix. As President Trump announced his war on Iran wearing a baseball cap in a video released in the early hours Saturday morning while he was at Mar-a-Lago, that lesson hung heavily over the proceedings. This was a decision made by one man with no legal basis, little public support and no coherent explanation of an endgame.

威权政治与军事侵略是一种危险的组合。周六凌晨，戴着棒球帽的特朗普总统在佛罗里达州马阿拉歌庄园发布视频，宣布对伊朗开战，这一教训沉重地笼罩着整个过程。这是由一人作出的决定，没有法律依据，缺乏公众支持，也没有对最终目标作出前后一致的解释。

Within a few months, Mr. Trump has ordered the military to blow up boats in the Caribbean, abduct the leader of Venezuela and decapitate the government of Iran. The absence of any congressional authorization or campaign to prepare the American people feels intentional. We are not meant to think too much about the basis for action, how much it costs or what happens after the spectacle of bombs falling. Before we digest the last operation, there is the threat of a new one. The dizzying nature of these actions makes them seem routine.

在短短几个月里，特朗普下令军方在加勒比海炸毁船只，绑架委内瑞拉领导人，斩首伊朗政府。他的行动没有任何国会授权，也没有开展让美国人民有所准备的宣传活动，这种缺失让人感觉是刻意为之。他们刻意让我们不要去深究行动的依据、代价，或者炸弹落下的震撼场面之后会发生什么。我们还没消化完上一次行动，新的威胁就已经出现。这种令人目眩的节奏使这些行动显得仿佛稀松平常。

But something has shifted. Mr. Trump now regularly uses the military as an extension of his personal instincts. He may try to keep the operation short. That won’t stave off the consequences. Whatever happens in the coming weeks, the United States has extended its post-9/11 forever war into Iran, an act that will reverberate across the Middle East for years to come.

但情况已经发生变化。特朗普现在经常将军队用作他个人本能的延伸。他可能会试图让行动保持短促。但这无法避免后果。无论未来几周发生什么，美国已将后“9·11”时代无休无止的战争延伸到了伊朗，这一举动将在未来数年里在整个中东地区产生严重影响。

The immediate questions concern the course of the war. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was a brutal and repressive force in the lives of Iranians for decades. His demise hardly resolves the matter of who will control a country of more than 90 million people, particularly as the most heavily armed factions tend to be the most hard-line and are faced with a direct threat to their power and wealth.

眼前的问题关乎战争的走向。几十年来，伊朗最高领袖哈梅内伊一直是压迫伊朗人的一股残暴压制力量。他的死并不能解决谁来控制这个拥有9000多万人口国家的问题，尤其是那些武装最精良的派系往往最为强硬，他们正面临对其权力和财富的直接威胁。

The Iranian regime is weakened but still capable of inflicting damage. Strikes at U.S. military facilities and civilian targets from the Persian Gulf states to Israel suggest an initial strategy of trying to redistribute the violence and disruption wrought upon Iran to its neighbors. Attacks on energy infrastructure and shipping could bring those costs to the global economy. (Energy prices have already jumped.) Retaliatory cyberoperations, terrorism and proxy strikes could also come in waves.

伊朗政权虽然遭到削弱，但仍然具备造成破坏的能力。从波斯湾国家到以色列，对美国军事设施和民用目标的打击表明，伊朗的初步战略是把施加在它身上的暴力与破坏引向邻国。对能源基础设施和航运的攻击可能会把这些代价转嫁给全球经济。（能源价格已经上涨。）报复性的网络行动、恐怖主义以及代理人袭击也可能一波波袭来。

Mr. Trump’s only stated plan for regime change was a call for the Iranian people to rise up. Then what? Those who do may be massacred. Some version of the regime could still cling to power. Iran could devolve into civil conflict, as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya did after the initially triumphant toppling of their leaders. Separatist movements among ethnic minorities could fracture the country and draw in neighboring states. Protracted violence or extreme poverty could lead to a surge of refugees into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and ultimately Europe.

特朗普关于政权更迭唯一公开宣称的方案是呼吁伊朗人民起来反抗。然后呢？那些起义者可能会遭到屠杀。伊朗政权的某种形式仍可能顽强维持权力。伊朗也可能像阿富汗、伊拉克和利比亚那样，在其领导人最初被成功推翻后陷入内战。少数民族中的分离主义运动可能会导致国家分裂，并把邻国卷入其中。长期的暴力或极端贫困可能会导致难民涌入阿富汗、巴基斯坦、土耳其，最终流向欧洲。

There are, of course, better scenarios. A chastened regime could pursue some form of accommodation with America and evolution at home. Or perhaps Iran could buck the trend of nearly every other country from North Africa to South Asia that has undergone regime change this century and transition peacefully to a democratic form of government.

当然，也存在更好的可能。一个受挫的政权可能会寻求某种形式的对美妥协，并在国内推动渐进变革。或者，伊朗可能逆转本世纪从北非到南亚几乎所有经历政权更迭国家的趋势，实现向民主政体的和平过渡。

Mr. Trump will surely declare victory in Iran, just as he did last summer. But wars play out in the lives of people and nations, not news cycles. The 1953 U.S. and British-backed coup that enabled the shah to consolidate power in Iran appeared to be a victory, but it became part of the DNA of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Islamic republic that has bedeviled the United States ever since.

特朗普肯定会像去年夏天那样宣布在伊朗取得胜利。但战争的展开关乎人民和国家的生命，而不是新闻周期的更迭。1953年美英支持的政变使伊朗国王得以在伊朗巩固权力，当时这看似一场胜利，但它却成了1979年伊朗革命以及其后一直困扰美国的伊斯兰共和国的基因组成部分。

Even those who welcome the decapitation of the Iranian regime may feel deep unease about America’s behavior. The United States, like Israel, now seems to follow no rules, consult few allies and pay little regard to the destruction it leaves behind, including in the prosperous Arab gulf states. Like an empire of old, it demands tribute — be it Venezuelan oil or payments to the amorphous “Board of Peace.” Mr. Trump’s tariff policies, maximum pressure sanctions, episodic threats on Greenland and military action are experienced as a strategy of calculated chaos.

即使那些欢迎伊朗政权被斩首的人也可能对美国的行为深感不安。美国如今似乎和以色列一样，不遵循任何规则，很少咨询盟友意见，也很少顾及自己所留下的破坏，包括在富裕的阿拉伯海湾国家造成的影响。它像一个老牌帝国一样要求进贡——无论是委内瑞拉的石油，还是向说不清道不明的和平委员会付款。特朗普的关税政策、极限施压制裁、对格陵兰的间歇性威胁以及军事行动都被视为一种蓄意制造混乱的策略。

What lessons will nations draw from this new reality? For would-be nuclear powers, it is that North Korea’s arsenal brought security that Iran’s negotiations could not. For Russia and China, it is that might makes right. For our European allies, it is that the United States is an unpredictable force that could again threaten Greenland or meddle in their internal politics at any moment. The old U.S.-led order is dead. The new one feels unstable and ominous, as if a storm could descend at any moment.

各国会从这一新现实中汲取什么教训？对于潜在的核国家来说，教训是朝鲜的核武库带来了伊朗靠谈判无法实现的安全。对于俄罗斯和中国来说，教训是强权即公理。对于我们的欧洲盟友来说，教训是美国是一个不可预测的力量，可能随时再次威胁格陵兰，或干涉它们的内政。由美国主导的旧秩序已经终结。新的秩序则显得不稳定且让人不安，仿佛风暴随时可能降临。

Mr. Trump probably would not have become president without his stated opposition to forever wars; it is a feature, not a bug, of MAGA. Yet in his return to the presidency, he has proved to be far more interested in power itself. Setting aside the risks outlined above, this dynamic alone should compel stronger and sustained Democratic opposition to this war.

特朗普之所以能当选总统，很大程度上正是因为他公开反对永无休止的战争；这是“让美国再次伟大”运动的特征，而非缺陷。然而在重返总统职位后，他展现出对权力本身更强烈的渴求。即便撇开上文概述的风险不谈，这种趋势本身也足以促使民主党对这场战争进行更强烈且持续的反对。

Rather than representing a break from America’s imperial instincts, Mr. Trump has personalized them. There is no reason to believe he won’t lash out militarily again. (How many Americans even know we bombed Nigeria on Christmas Day?) Cuba is currently being starved by a blockade, despite posing no danger to U.S. national security.

特朗普并未摒弃美国的帝国主义倾向，而是将其个人化了。没有理由相信他不会再次动用军事手段。（有多少美国人知道我们在圣诞节轰炸了尼日利亚？）古巴目前正因封锁而挨饿，尽管它并未对美国国家安全构成威胁。

After 25 years of constant war, there is little appetite for this kind of adventurism among the American people. The operations around Venezuela and in Iran are both estimated to cost at least several billion dollars, with more to come. That is not how American taxpayers want their money spent amid a cost-of-living crisis, deep cuts to the social safety net and exploding deficits.

在经历了25年的持续战争之后，美国人民对这种冒险主义已提不起什么兴致。据估计，围绕委内瑞拉的行动以及在伊朗的行动都将至少耗资数十亿美元，后续还会有更多支出。在生活成本危机、社会保障体系大幅削减以及赤字激增的情况下，美国纳税人可不希望他们的钱被这样花掉。

More profoundly, the way Mr. Trump has deployed the newly minted Department of War abroad should raise concerns about what he might do with the military at home. Already he has tried to send troops into American cities but faced judicial pushback. He has mused about invoking the Insurrection Act, which would grant him emergency powers to deploy the military to enforce laws within the United States. Whether in response to peaceful protests or an election loss, this would put American democracy into dangerous territory.

更深层次来看，特朗普在海外动用新成立的战争部的方式应该引发人们对他可能在国内如何动用军队的担忧。他已尝试派遣军队进入美国城市，但遇到了司法阻碍。他考虑过援引《反叛乱法》，这将授予他动用军队在美国境内执法的紧急权力。无论是为了应对和平抗议还是选举失利，这都将把美国民主推入危险境地。

If these scenarios seem fanciful, consider what has already happened. Mr. Trump addressed general officers and suggested that U.S. cities become military training grounds. He called for the imprisonment of a handful of Democratic members of Congress for suggesting that service members should not follow illegal orders. And last week he ordered the government to stop using the services of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic because it refused to allow the Pentagon to have unfettered access to its technology for the mass surveillance of Americans.

如果这些情景听起来像是天方夜谭，不妨想想已经发生的事。特朗普曾对将官们发表讲话，表示美国城市可以成为军事训练场。他呼吁将几名民主党国会议员投入监狱，只因他们主张军人不应服从非法命令。上周，他还命令政府停止使用人工智能公司Anthropic的服务，因为该公司拒绝让五角大楼对其技术拥有不受限制的访问权，以便对美国人进行大规模监控。

We must not be numbed to the repeated, illegal use of the United States military. Nor should we discount what Mr. Trump’s extension of the forever war is doing to us.

我们不能对反复非法使用美国军队的行为麻木不仁。我们也不应低估特朗普将永久战争扩大化对我们造成的影响。

Foundational questions are at stake for Americans. Do we want to continue forever wars financed with borrowed money and fought by service members whose sacrifices stand in stark contrast to the cowardice of our billionaire class? Do we want to regularly bomb other countries while endangering the lives of millions of human beings by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development? Do we want to remain in a permanent state of war that migrates from one place to another while rampant inequality and revolutionary technologies remake our communities with little resistance?

一些关乎根本的问题正摆在美国人面前。我们是否要继续打这种用借来的钱资助、由军人承担牺牲的永久战争？而这些牺牲与我们亿万富豪阶层的怯懦形成鲜明对比。我们是否要一边频繁轰炸其他国家，一边通过削弱美国国际开发署而危及数百万人的生命？肆虐的不平等和革命性的技术正在重塑我们的社区，却几乎未遇任何阻力，我们是否希望维持在一种永久战争状态，任凭战火从一个地方蔓延到另一个地方？

Mr. Trump’s authoritarianism is not abstract. There is nothing stopping him from wielding the awesome power of the United States to serve his own interests, not the public’s. War should never be normal. We don’t know where this one will lead, but we do know that it has already killed untold civilians — including dozens of girls who did nothing but go to school. The desensitization of Americans to this kind of violence is part of what is broken in our society.

特朗普的威权主义并非抽象概念。没有什么能阻止他运用美国的强大国家力量来服务于他的个人利益，而非公共利益。战争绝不应成为常态。我们不知道这场战争将走向何方，但我们知道它已经造成了无数平民死亡——其中包括数十名只是去上学的女孩。美国人对这种暴力逐渐麻木本身就是我们社会失序的一部分。

By aligning themselves with public opinion, the Constitution and a sense of shared humanity at home and abroad, Democrats can offer an alternative vision to the forever war. The just and lasting peace that most Americans seek is one in which government responds to their problems, rather than constantly looking for regimes to change or enemies, whether foreign or domestic, to crush.

如果民主党能够顺应民意、坚守宪法原则，并秉持对国内外共同人性的尊重，他们就可以为永久战争提供一种替代愿景。大多数美国人所追求的公正而持久的和平是一种政府能够回应他们问题的和平，而不是不断寻找要更迭的政权或要粉碎的内外敌人的和平。