然而令其他观察家们感到哀伤的是，美国还没有从其中东地区的失败中吸取教训。“美国进步中心”是一家观点左倾的华盛顿智库，该中心的布赖恩•凯图伊思（ Brian Katulis ）说：“奥巴马曾说过，我们不仅要改变伊拉克战争，而是要改变导致了这场战争的心态，但现在并没有发生这种变化。”他说，尽管有一种观点认为软实力可以像军事实力一样强大，但这种观点并没有转化为对外政策。乔治•华盛顿大学的马克•林奇（Marc Lynch）对此表示赞同，他说：“我们似乎已经从伊拉克得到了教训，但事实并非如此。本来应该是'不要再产生这样的灾难了'，结果却成了'现在我们知道怎么镇压叛乱了。”
THE Middle East .......and also generates its biggest political headaches.
..................................但也是世界上最令人头痛的地方
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嗨，老乡，我虽然看不懂棋盘，但是又来了
有不同理解：这句话的主语是the middle east ，后面的also动作发出者也是它。就是它因为石油储量丰富，所以产生了让它头疼的政治问题。试想，如果一家人有钱，没人觊觎，它何必头痛。
Most of them still come when America beckons, but ten years ago things began to slip.
十年前如果美国召唤的话，其中的大多数人还是会应邀而来
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这句话我不理解。前面都用的一般现在时，but后用的是一般过去时。如果按照楼主那样翻译，前面应该也是过去时才对。
“The lesson we seem to have learned from Iraq is not, ‘Disaster, don’t do it again’, but rather, ‘Now we know how to do counterinsurgency.’”
“我们似乎已经从伊拉克得到了教训，但事实并非如此。本来应该是'不要再产生这样的灾难了'，结果却成了'现在我们知道怎么镇压叛乱了。”
“The lesson we seem to have learned from Iraq is not, ‘Disaster, don’t do it again’, but rather, ‘Now we know how to do counterinsurgency.’”
“我们似乎已经从伊拉克得到了教训，但事实并非如此。本来应该是'不要再产生这样的灾难了'，结果却成了'现在我们知道怎么镇压叛乱了。”
Countries such as Iran that would not, or Somalia that could not, were ignored. 这里would not 和could not 的宾语是vie for American favour 不是挑战的能力和意愿吧……
原句与译文如下:
Two decades ago, when America marshalled a daunting force to toss Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, it stood unchallenged in the region. Kings and presidents-for-life vied for American favour. Countries such as Iran that would not, or Somalia that could not, were ignored.
二十年前，当美国统领一支强大的联军将萨达姆驱逐出科威特的时候，在该地区没有任何力量敢于对美国提出挑战。各国的国王与终身总统们争相邀宠于美国。如伊朗一类的国家没有向美国挑战的意愿，如索马里一类的国家也没有挑战的能力，他们都被忽视了。
后面两句话是从正、反两个方面例举说明美国的“stood unchallenged in the region”。
THE Middle East holds a giant chunk of the world’s energy reserves, and also generates its biggest political headaches. Small wonder that the United States has long had an outsize interest in the place. Since September 11th 2001, and the rise of radical Islam as the sole violent challenge to an American-shaped international order, America’s focus on the region between the Nile and the Indus rivers has been obsessive. Yet all the attention would seem to have been in vain. America’s influence has dwindled everywhere with the financial crisis and the rise of emerging powers. But it seems to be withering faster in the Middle East than anywhere else.
Two decades ago, when America marshalled a daunting force to toss Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, it stood unchallenged in the region. Kings and presidents-for-life vied for American favour. Countries such as Iran that would not, or Somalia that could not, were ignored. When America summoned leaders to Madrid in 1991 to sort out the most intractable Middle Eastern mess, the Arab-Israeli struggle, some grumbled, but all fell into line.
1. Countries such as Iran that would not, or Somalia that could not, were ignored.
这句话省略的动词是would not (vie for American favour），不是“挑战美国”。
2. fell into line不是“纷至沓来”，而是支持美国，可翻译为“但也没有谁公开反对美国”。
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Most of them still come when America beckons, but ten years ago things began to slip. Despite the commitment of successive American presidents, and despite near-consensus worldwide on the outlines of an agreement, Arab-Israeli peace has kept receding out of reach. The invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 vastly expanded America’s bootprint in the region. But the smoke of those Pyrrhic triumphs cleared to reveal America in trouble. The global “war on terror” declared by George Bush displaced al-Qaeda and prevented several serious attacks. But those successes drained America’s treasury, alienated its friends and emboldened its enemies. Recalcitrant, revolutionary Iran found itself magically enhanced.
America’s Middle East policy now looks thwarted at every turn. Its closest ally, Israel, which has received more than $27 billion in American military aid over the past decade, has rebuffed pleas, backed by offers of yet more aid and diplomatic support, to pause in its building of illegal Jewish settlements in occupied territory. Another Middle Eastern friend and aid recipient, Egypt, has cocked a snook at American requests to set an example of democratic reform. It rejected a call by Barack Obama to let international observers monitor a recent, garishly fraudulent election. Iraq, where America has expended so much blood and treasure, took nine months to form a shaky government that looks more to Iran’s liking than America’s. And Iran seems undiminished in its determination to pursue its nuclear ambitions, no matter how much America and its allies rattle sabres and pile on sanctions.
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Even the popularity of Mr Obama, which surged among Arabs and Muslims after his inauguration, has fallen back. Shibley Telhami, of the University of Maryland who has long experience in polling regional opinion, notes two trends. Arabs used to distinguish between a dislike for American policies and a liking for Americans as people; now they tend to dismiss both. And when asked which leaders they admire, Arabs continue to cheer those who stand up to America and to its ally Israel. This year Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan tops the list, followed by Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s yanqui-baiter-in-chief.
1. Arabs used to distinguish between a dislike for American policies and a liking for Americans as people; now they tend to dismiss both.
没有“闻名”的意思，应翻译出“区别对待”的意思。
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Several reasons lie behind America’s loss of potency. Some reflect changes within the Middle East. Allies such as Israel and Turkey long followed American wishes reflexively because they felt imperilled and dependent on American largesse. They have now grown too strong for that. With its thriving economy, Israel feels able to take a more independent line. Turkey has also become an economic power and its government, unlike the dictatorships elsewhere in the Middle East, is now democratic. And although the region’s two strongest states still pursue policies that dovetail with America’s, they have grown unhelpfully estranged from each other.
3. unhelpfully不“无可救药”，而是说这两个国家渐行渐远无益于美国重掌对中东的控制。
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Other allies that once augmented American power by proxy have grown too weak to help. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia packs financial clout, but its ruling princes are ageing and absorbed by a struggle for succession. Egypt, the most populous and diplomatically agile Arab country, is also run by old men. Once they could rally Arabs behind American objectives, but the Egyptians have struggled lately even to get the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, to talk to each other. The Mubaraks and the Al Sauds have little impact any more on the Arab Street: “resistance” and defiance carry more appeal. “The sense of how weak we are is a factor of how weak our partners are,” says Scott Carpenter, a Bush-administration official now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
America’s own mistakes, tactical and strategic, have speeded its decline. The failure to find banned weapons in Saddam’s Iraq and the torture at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib have tainted America’s moral authority. The application of American firepower has, ironically, also raised the bar for defying America’s will. Iran and its allies, including Syria, Hamas and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia, feel they can call America’s bluff because they think that, having burned its fingers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will no longer back harsh words with invasions.
1. tained America's moral authority只需翻译成玷污了美国的道德权威即可，不用译出两句话来。同样的问题还有最后一句，“已经吃过苦头”这句话可以删掉。
2. Hamas and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia，后半句是解释真主党的，不是又单说一个黎巴嫩民兵。翻译时应体现这一点。
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You can see how they might reach that judgment. Aside from nearly 6,000 American fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expenditure, so far, of more than $1.1 trillion on military operations in those theatres has sapped the will for more campaigns. The cost of keeping a single soldier on the ground now exceeds $500,000 a year—a strong reason for a poorer America to reduce its presence in the region.
The incoming, Tea-Party-infused Congress is likely to make things harder. Whereas rivalry between Democrats and Republicans used to end at the water’s edge, it now extends into foreign policy. Despite the ratification of the New START treaty at the end of 2010, Congress is beset by partisanship, even in petty matters. Solely because of partisan obstruction, Mr Obama has yet to secure approval for his choice of two career diplomats as ambassadors to Turkey and Syria.
America’s pro-Israel lobby shows no sign of losing strength. Jonathan Broder, foreign-affairs editor of the Congressional Quarterly, discerns an effort by Republicans to woo Jewish voters, long more supportive of Democrats, by outbidding the administration over Israel. Eric Cantor, the incoming House majority leader, has proposed moving the $3 billion annual military grant to Israel from the foreign-aid budget to the Pentagon, in effect shielding it from spending cuts. “Not only would this remove a lever for American pressure,” warns Mr Broder, “it would make us silent accomplices in the settlement process.”
However, other Washington observers lament that the lessons of failure in the Middle East have yet to be learned. “Obama said that we had not only to change the war in Iraq, but to change the mindset that led to the war, and this has not happened,” says Brian Katulis of the Centre for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think-tank. Despite a view that soft power can be as potent as military muscle, he says, this has not translated into policy. Marc Lynch, of George Washington University, agrees: “The lesson we seem to have learned from Iraq is not, ‘Disaster, don’t do it again’, but rather, ‘Now we know how to do counterinsurgency.’”
然而令其他观察家们感到哀伤的是，美国还没有从其中东地区的失败中吸取教训。“美国进步中心”是一家观点左倾的华盛顿智库，该中心的布赖恩•凯图伊思（ Brian Katulis ）说：“奥巴马曾说过，我们不仅要改变伊拉克战争，而是要改变导致了这场战争的心态，但现在并没有发生这种变化。”他说，尽管有一种观点认为软实力可以像军事实力一样强大，但这种观点并没有转化为对外政策。乔治•华盛顿大学的马克•林奇（Marc Lynch）对此表示赞同，他说：“我们似乎已经从伊拉克得到了教训，但事实并非如此。本来应该是'不要再产生这样的灾难了'，结果却成了'现在我们知道怎么镇压叛乱了。”
1.“The lesson we seem to have learned from Iraq is not, ‘Disaster, don’t do it again’, but rather, ‘Now we know how to do counterinsurgency.’”
is not和disaster是联着的，即应译为：我们从伊拉克学到的东西似乎是“这回我们知道如何平叛了。”而不是“不要让灾难重演。”
America’s woes have led some to accuse Mr Obama’s team of managing the Middle East even more ineptly than Mr Bush’s did. The American right and many Israelis think he is too pro-Arab. Arabs, Europeans and critics from the left charge him with being timid and oversensitive to domestic politics; with lacking strategic vision; with being locked into black-and-white views that overlook useful ambiguities; and with substituting lofty talk for firm action.
This is not entirely fair. As with the economy, Mr Obama took on a terrible inheritance from his predecessor. Iraq, Iran and Arab-Israeli peace were big burning fires when he took office. All have since been contained, to some extent, and largely by American efforts. Indeed, if damage-control was the mission, Mr Obama may claim a decent measure of success.
claim不是宣布，而是To demand, ask for, or take as one's own or one's due，即要突出“自己”，另外may不是“完全可以”，语气不对，a decent measure of success的程度应更低一些。可译为：奥巴马也许可以说自己去取得了一些成绩。
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Mr Obama began with an assessment of what was wrong, and the steps needed to repair it. He expressed his urgency by appealing to Muslims through Arab media, in his impassioned Cairo speech in 2009, and by diplomacy to rebuild confidence with allied governments and on a smaller scale by expanding funding to civil-society groups and human-rights activists across the Middle East. Such initiatives can be hard to gauge, yet despite Mr Obama’s falling regional approval and some worrying trends in public opinion, America’s standing is better than it was in the Bush years. The number of Middle Easterners studying in American colleges, for instance, has nearly doubled in the past five years.
这部分对原文的理解有问题，“by diplomacy to rebuild confidence with allied governments”是一部分，“ on a smaller scale by expanding funding to civil-society groups and human-rights activists across the Middle East”是另外一部分。
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Improvement shows up, too, in the State Department’s annual index of voting at the UN General Assembly. This has long revealed Arab states as the group least likely to vote with America. Voting coincidence stood at a peak of 40% under Bill Clinton. Under him it started to fall, reaching a feeble 10% in the Bush years. In 2009 Arab countries voted with America 20% of the time—not bad, considering that the average for all UN members was only 39%.
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