THE PEACE of the world is being broken by dunderheads(笨蛋、蠢货). At every turn economies are being wrecked and lives ended by wars of choice(选择性战争（非必要战争）) and policy blunders(大错、愚蠢的错误). Strikingly often, these actions were ordered up by rulers and regimes blind not just to common sense and decency, but to their own people’s long-term interests.
世界的和平正被蠢货们打破。每一步，经济被摧毁，生命因选择性的战争和政策失当而终结。引人注目的是，这些行为往往由统治者下令，他们不仅无视常识和体面，而且无视自己人民的长期利益。
Think of Vladimir Putin’s war to erase Ukraine as a sovereign state: a trumped-up conflict(捏造的冲突) that Russian generals promised would end in a few days, now in its fifth, blood-drenched(血淋淋的、血流成河的) year. Contemplate the horrors of Gaza, and the cruel bet made by leaders of Hamas on October 7th 2023. Their gambit(计谋、策略（常带风险）) was that co-ordinated acts of savagery would provoke a wounded Israel into overreaching(过度扩张、行为过火). In their fanaticism, Hamas leaders and militants did not care that Palestinians would pay the heaviest price. In response, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has pursued a surely doomed war aim: the complete pacification(绥靖、平定) of Gaza and its people through siege and the pitiless application of armed force. To date, Gaza is not at peace, and Israel’s global standing has collapsed.
想想弗拉基米尔·普京想要抹去乌克兰作为主权国家的战争：一场捏造的冲突，俄罗斯将军们承诺会在几天内结束，如今已进入第五个血雨腥风的年头。再想想加沙的恐怖，以及哈马斯领导人在2023年10月7日下的残酷赌注。他们的计谋是，协调的野蛮行径会激怒受伤的以色列使其过度反应。在他们的狂热中，哈马斯领导人和武装分子并不在乎巴勒斯坦人将付出最沉重的代价。作为回应，本雅明·内塔尼亚胡政府追求了一个注定失败的战争目标：通过围困和无情使用武力，彻底平定加沙及其人民。至今，加沙并未和平，以色列的全球地位已经崩溃。
The catalogue of errors continues with Iran’s Islamic regime. However the war in the Gulf ends, surviving members of that grim theocracy(神权政体) have learned that assembling almost all elements needed for a nuclear bomb, without building a device to deter an attack, was not the foolproof(万无一失的、绝对可靠的) strategy they supposed.
错误清单继续列及伊朗的伊斯兰政权。无论海湾战争如何结束，这个严酷神权政权的幸存成员们已经认识到，几乎组装齐核弹所需的所有要素，却没有真正造出威慑袭击的装置，并非他们原本以为的万无一失的策略。
Et tu, Kash Patel?
连你也这样吗，卡什·帕特尔？