I take it we all agree now that he isn’t an “isolationist”. A word that should never have been applied to Donald Trump in the first place went up in smoke last weekend, along with an unknown amount of Iran’s nuclear programme. The US bombings were consistent with his strike against Syria in 2017, against the leader of the militant group Isis in 2019 and against Iran’s most senior general in 2020. Given all the abstract nouns that fit Trump well — jingoism, unilateralism, anti-Europeanism — it is a wonder that isolationism ever saw daylight. It is not even clear that he opposed the Iraq war as a private citizen in 2003.
我想大家现在都同意他不是“孤立主义者”。本来就不应该用在唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)身上的这一称号上周末化为乌有——伴随着未知比例的伊朗核计划。此次轰炸行动与他2017年下令对叙利亚发动的袭击、2019年对恐怖组织伊斯兰国(ISIS)头目的袭击以及2020年对伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队“圣城旅”指挥官的定点清除如出一辙。考虑到有那么多适合被用来描述特朗普的抽象名词（极端爱国主义、单边主义、反欧主义），他竟然会被人贴上孤立主义的标签是令人惊叹的。甚至对于他是否曾在2003年以普通公民身份反对伊拉克战争，外界都不得而知。
What is true of one man might turn out to be true of the US as a great power. The lesson of the Iran intervention is that America’s dreaded retreat from the world is more talked about than strictly realistic, whoever is the president.
适用于一个人的道理，也许到头来也适用于作为一个大国的美国。人们从美国干预伊朗事务可以明白的是，无论谁当总统，人们所担心的美国从世界撤退都在更大程度上是空谈，而不具有严格意义上的可行性。
For a start, keep the “split” over the Iran bombing in some perspective. The most prominent dissenters are Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson, not administration officials or even a large group of congressional Republicans. Some of this is the slavishness of a Maga movement whose ultimate bond is to Trump himself, not to non-intervention or any other principle. (On the same theme, lots of vaccine sceptics revere a president who oversaw and promoted the Covid-19 jab). But it isn’t as if the Democratic revolt has been very thundering, either. Or the wider public one. The market for isolationism in the US tends to be exaggerated from outside, as it fits old stereotypes of an insular people.
首先，让我们看看轰炸伊朗行动所引发的“分裂”。最知名的反对者是史蒂夫•班农(Steve Bannon)和塔克•卡尔森(Tucker Carlson)，而不是特朗普政府官员，甚至也不是一大批国会共和党人。这在一定程度上体现出“让美国再次伟大”(MAGA)运动的奴性，这些人的效忠对象归根结底是特朗普本人，而不是不干预原则或其他什么原则。（按照相同的道理，许多疫苗怀疑论者崇敬一位推动研发和号召接种新冠疫苗的总统。）但民主党人乃至美国公众作为一个整体的反对声音似乎也并不响亮。孤立主义在美国的市场往往被外人夸大，就因为它契合世人认为美国人观念狭隘的成见。