伊拉克解体危机有望催生库尔德地区石油开采热潮

2014-06-24 14:44:44来源：可可英语

　　While violence explodes in Iraq between the brutal al-Qaeda-type Sunni Islamists and the Shiite-led government, there are five million Iraqis for which the unfolding disaster looks set to bring big benefits, as well perhaps as the world’s newest oil state—the Kurds.

　　伊拉克的暴力冲突持续升级。虽然残暴如基地组织的逊尼派伊斯兰主义者正在跟什叶派领导的政府展开殊死搏斗，但对于500万库尔德人来说，这场如火如荼的灾难似乎会带来巨大的好处，甚至有可能在世界上催生一个最新的石油国家。

　　Little more than a year ago, Fortune traveled to Iraq’s autonomous northern region as Kurdistan to describehow the deal between ExxonMobil XOM 0.26% and the Kurdish Regional Government, or KRG, could spark civil war in Iraq, as different factions waged battle for control over the country’s immense oil riches. At the time, Kurdish officials said they were thrilled that the world’s biggest oil company was about to start drilling in their autonomous region, which the International Energy Agency says has 4 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, but which the KRG estimates could in reality be closer to 45 billion barrels. Still, Kurdish officials warned last year that Washington’s muddled, misguided Iraq policy was a disaster in the making. “The U.S. policy is, ‘We got out, finished. Box checked. Move on,’ ” Qubad Talabani, a senior Kurdistan official who became the KRG’s Deputy Prime Minister last month, told me at the time in Kurdistan’s capital Irbil. One major problem, according to Talabani (who was previously KRG representative in Washington) and other officials, was that U.S. officials were determined to keep Iraq as a unified intact country, despite the bitter schisms between the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, Iraq’s Sunni minority, and the Kurdish community, which has dreamed of having their own state for decades. “The U.S. still wants Iraqis to be Iraqis first,” Talabani said. “It’s like, if they say it enough it will be so. But it won’t.”

　　大约一年多以前，《财富》(Fortune)记者前往伊拉克北部的库尔德自治区，并在随后刊发的一篇报道中声称，鉴于不同派别发动战争以争夺该国巨额石油财富的控制权，埃克森美孚公司(ExxonMobil)和库尔德地区政府(KRG)达成的交易可能会引发伊拉克内战。库尔德官员当时表示，听闻世界上最大的石油公司打算在这里钻探石油，他们欣喜若狂。国际能源机构(International Energy Agency)声称，库尔德自治区拥有40亿桶已探明石油储量，但KRG预测称，真实的储量接近45亿桶。不过，库尔德官员去年警告说，华盛顿的伊拉克政策混乱不堪，误入歧途，正在促发一场灾难。“美国的政策是，‘完事了，我们撤了。已经打勾了。该继续前进了。’”当时在库尔德地区首府埃尔比勒接受采访时，库尔德高级官员库巴德o塔拉巴尼这样说道。塔拉巴尼曾经担任KRG驻华盛顿代表，上个月刚刚成为KRG副总理。在他和其他官员看来，尽管什叶派主导的巴格达政府、作为少数族裔的伊拉克逊尼派，以及数十年来一直怀抱独立梦想的库尔德社区已经严重分裂，但美国官员还是决定把伊拉克维系成为一个统一的完整国家。“美国仍然希望伊拉克人首先是伊拉克人，”塔拉巴尼说。“好像只要足够频繁地表达这种愿望，它就会成真似的。但这种情形根本就不会出现。”

　　Now Talabani’s words sound eerily prophetic. With the past six days’ violence, Iraq appears to be hurtling towards a three-way breakup: A Sunni-dominated western Iraq dominated by hardline militant jihadist groups; a northern Kurdish territory, and a southern and central Shiite Iraq. With the potential for disintegration comes major upheaval in Opec’s second biggest oil producer and one of the world’s biggest oil nations—and a huge victory for the Kurds.

　　现在看来，塔拉巴尼的这番话极富预见性。随着过去六天不断升级的暴力冲突，伊拉克似乎正朝着三向分裂的道路疾驰而去：逊尼派激进圣战组织控制的伊拉克西部地区;北部的库尔德地区;什叶派控制的伊拉克南部和中部地区。作为石油输出国家组织(OPEC)第二大石油生产国、世界上最大的石油国家之一，面临解体可能性的伊拉克即将陷入巨大的动荡之中。但对库尔德人来说，这不啻为一个巨大的胜利。

　　Just to recap: Iraq’s crisis, which has bubbled all year, exploded into view last Wednesday when militants from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, stormed into Iraq’s second city Mosul and seized it with barely a fight; government soldiers fled, abandoning an arsenal of U.S. weaponry worth tens of millions of dollars, including armored vehicles, attack helicopters and machine guns with which the U.S. had equipped Iraq’s military, ironically to fight Islamic insurgents. Instead, ISIS fighters took to the sky in a U.S. helicopter and rumbled south laden with American armor, quickly taking Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and edging towards the outskirts of Baghdad. On Sunday it also seized Tal Afar, a town of about 200,000 people west of Mosul.

　　简单回顾一下伊拉克局势：这场危机已经持续了一整年，但直到上周三才进入国际社会的视野。当天，一个叫做“伊拉克与黎凡特伊斯兰国( ISIS)”的武装组织突然攻入摩苏尔，几乎不费吹灰之力就拿下了这座伊拉克第二大城市;政府军逃之夭夭，放弃了美国用来武装伊拉克军队的武器装备，其中包括装甲车、攻击型直升机和机关枪。具有讽刺意味的是，这些价值数千万美元的武器原本是用来对付伊斯兰叛乱分子的。现如今，ISIS士兵驾驶着美国直升机飞向天空，载满这些叛乱分子的美国装甲车轰隆隆地向南部地区挺进，很快就占领了萨达姆家乡提克里特，剑锋直指巴格达郊区。上周日，这群武装分子还攻克了摩苏尔以西、拥有大约20万人口的小城泰勒阿费尔。

本文关键字: 伊拉克解体危机