Roxana Saberi felt like she was back behind bars in Tehran. As she watched Israel’s bombing of Evin prison, the notorious detention facility at the core of Iran’s political repression, she shuddered at memories of solitary confinement, relentless interrogation, fabricated espionage charges and a sham trial during her 100-day incarceration in 2009.

罗克珊娜·萨贝里感觉自己仿佛回到了德黑兰的监狱。当她看到以色列轰炸埃文监狱——伊朗政治压迫核心的臭名昭著的拘留设施时，她回忆起2009年被监禁100天期间的单独监禁、无休止的审讯、捏造的间谍指控和虚假审判，不寒而栗。

Like many Iranians in the diaspora and at home, Ms. Saberi wavered, torn between her dreams of a government collapse that would free the country’s immense potential and her concern for family and friends as the civilian death toll mounted. Longings for liberation and for a cease-fire vied with each other.

像许多海内外伊朗人一样，萨贝里女士犹豫不决，她既梦想政府垮台以释放国家巨大的潜力，又担心随着平民死亡人数的增加，家人和朋友的安危。解放的渴望与停火的愿望相互冲突。

“For a moment, I imagined seeing Iran again in my lifetime,” said Ms. Saberi, 48, a dual Iranian and American citizen and author who has taken a break from her journalistic career. “I also thought how ridiculous it was that the Islamic Republic wasted decades accusing thousands of women’s rights advocates, dissidents and others of being spies, when they couldn’t catch the real spies.”

“有那么一刻，我想象自己有生之年能再次看到伊朗，”48岁的萨贝里女士说，她是伊朗和美国双重国籍的公民及作家，目前暂停了她的新闻事业。“我也觉得荒谬的是，伊斯兰共和国几十年来浪费时间指控成千上万的妇女权利倡导者、异见人士和其他人是间谍，而他们却抓不到真正的间谍。”

Those spies, mainly from Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service, penetrated Iran’s highest political and military echelons. The question now is what a shaken Islamic Republic in dire economic straits will do with what President Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate, has called “a golden opportunity for change.” That moment is also one of extreme, even existential, risk brought on by the 12-day Israeli-Iranian war that the United States briefly joined.

这些间谍主要来自以色列摩萨德外情报机构，渗透进了伊朗最高政治和军事阶层。现在的问题是，经济陷入困境的伊斯兰共和国将如何利用温和派总统马苏德·佩泽什基安所说的“变革的黄金机会”。这一时刻也因美国短暂加入的为期12天的以色列-伊朗战争带来了极端甚至关乎存亡的风险。

The military campaign flirted with dislodging the clerical autocracy that has made uranium enrichment the symbol of Iran’s national pride, but stopped short of killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had said that the ayatollah’s death would “end the conflict.” The 46-year-old Islamic Republic limps on.

这场军事行动险些动摇了以铀浓缩为国家骄傲象征的教士专制，但并未杀死伊朗86岁的最高领袖阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊，尽管以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡曾表示，哈梅内伊的死亡将“结束冲突”。46岁的伊斯兰共和国仍在蹒跚前行。

It does so despite the collapse of its “axis of resistance” that was formed through the funding, at vast expense, of anti-Western proxies from Lebanon to Yemen; despite the devastating bombing of its equally exorbitant nuclear facilities that never produced a bomb and scarcely lit a lightbulb; and despite the humiliation of surrendering the skies above Iran to its enemies.

尽管其耗资巨大的“抵抗轴心”——通过资助从黎巴嫩到也门的反西方代理人形成——已经崩溃；尽管其同样昂贵的核设施遭到毁灭性轰炸，这些设施从未制造出核弹，也几乎未能点亮一盏灯泡；尽管它屈辱地向敌人交出了伊朗上空的控制权，它仍在继续。

Yet Mr. Khamenei, as the guardian of the theocratic anti-Western revolution that triumphed in 1979, sees himself as the victor. “The Islamic Republic won,” he said in a video broadcast on Thursday from a secret location, laying to rest rumors of his demise.

然而，作为1979年胜利的神权反西方革命的守护者，哈梅内伊认为自己是胜利者。“伊斯兰共和国赢了，”他在周四从一个秘密地点发布的视频中说，平息了关于他死亡的谣言。

His is a survival game dosed with prudence that now faces the greatest test of his 36 years in power.

他的生存游戏充满了谨慎，现在面临着他36年执政生涯中最大的考验。

“To understand Iran and Khamenei and the people around him is to understand that the Islamic Republic’s survival is always a victory,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London think tank.

“要理解伊朗、哈梅内伊及其周围的人，就要明白伊斯兰共和国的生存永远是胜利，”伦敦智库查塔姆研究所中东和北非项目主任萨南·瓦基尔说。

Revolution at a Crossroads

革命处于十字路口

Already, tensions over how to address the crisis brought on by the war are evident.

如何应对战争引发的危机，紧张局势已经显现。

President Pezeshkian appears to favor a liberalizing makeover, repairing relations with the West through a possible nuclear deal. He has spoken in recent days of “an opportunity to change our views on governance.”

佩泽什基安总统似乎倾向于自由化改革，通过可能的核协议修复与西方的关系。他最近几天提到“改变我们对治理看法的机会”。

It was not clear what he meant, but many in Iran favor strengthening elected institutions and making the supreme leader more of a figurehead than the ultimate font of authority. They seek an Islamic Republic that is more of a republic, where women are empowered and a younger generation no longer feels oppressed by a gerontocratic theological system.

他的意思尚不清楚，但许多伊朗人支持加强民选机构，使最高领袖更多地成为象征性人物，而非最终权威的源泉。他们寻求一个更像共和国的伊斯兰共和国，在那里女性被赋予权力，年轻一代不再感到被老年神学系统压迫。

Mr. Khamenei insisted that the Israeli and American attack on nuclear facilities had failed “to achieve anything significant.” But Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi seemed to question that judgment, saying on Thursday that the country’s nuclear facilities had sustained “significant and serious damage.”

哈梅内伊坚称以色列和美国对核设施的攻击“未能取得任何重大成果”。但外交部长阿巴斯·阿拉克奇似乎对此判断提出质疑，他在周四表示，国家的核设施遭受了“重大且严重的损害”。

Hardliners see any disunity as a danger signal. They believe concessions presage collapse. The fall of the Soviet unx in 1991, 69 years after its formation, and the “color revolutions” that brought Western democracy to post-Soviet states, deeply affected Mr. Khamenei and his entourage.

强硬派将任何不团结视为危险信号。他们认为妥协预示着崩溃。1991年苏联在其成立69年后解体，以及带来西方民主的“颜色革命”对后苏联国家的影响，深深影响了哈梅内伊及其随行人员。

They are suspicious of any nuclear deal, and adamant that Iran must retain the right to enrich uranium on its soil, which Israel and the United States have said is unacceptable. They are also strongly represented in the country’s single most powerful institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

他们对任何核协议持怀疑态度，并坚持伊朗必须保留在其领土上浓缩铀的权利，而以色列和美国表示这是不可接受的。他们还在该国最强大的单一机构——伊斯兰革命卫队中拥有强大的代表性。

The Guards number 150,000 to 190,000 members, Ms. Vakil said. With control over vast swaths of the economy, they have a deep vested interest in the government’s survival. They are the kind of large institutional buffer that President Bashar al-Assad in Syria lacked before his downfall last year.

瓦基尔女士说，革命卫队有15万至19万名成员。他们控制着经济的广大领域，对政府的生存有深厚的既得利益。他们是叙利亚总统巴沙尔·阿萨德去年倒台前所缺乏的那种大型机构缓冲。

Already, as it did in 2009 when a large-scale uprising threatened the toppling of the Islamic Republic, Iran has embarked on a crackdown involving hundreds of arrests, at least three executions, and the deployment of the Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia in Kurdish and other restive areas.

正如2009年大规模起义威胁推翻伊斯兰共和国时所做的那样，伊朗已开始进行镇压，涉及数百人被捕，至少三人被处决，并在库尔德地区和其他不安定地区部署了革命卫队和巴斯基民兵。

Iranians have seen this movie before. Some wonder what the war was for if they are to face another bludgeoning. “The people want to know who is to blame for multiple defeats, but there is no leader to take on the regime,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent political scientist in the United Arab Emirates. “A weak Islamic Republic could hang on four or five years.”

伊朗人之前已经看过这部电影了。有些人想知道，如果他们要面对又一次打击，这场战争是为了什么。阿拉伯联合酋长国的著名政治学家阿卜杜勒哈勒克·阿卜杜拉说：“人民想知道谁该为多次失败负责，但没有领导人来对抗这个政权。”“一个虚弱的伊斯兰共和国可能还能坚持四五年。”

This weakness appears deep. The “victory” claimed by Mr. Khamenei cannot disguise the fact that Iran is now a nation with near zero deterrence.

这种虚弱似乎根深蒂固。哈梅内伊宣称的“胜利”无法掩盖伊朗现在几乎没有威慑力的事实。

“I would imagine that deep in his bunker, Khamenei’s priority must be how to rebuild a deterrence that was based on the nuclear program, the missile program and armed proxies, all now in shreds,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and, as United Nations under secretary-general for political affairs in 2012, one of the few Americans to have met the supreme leader.

“我可以想象，在他的地堡深处，哈梅内伊的首要任务一定是重建基于核计划、导弹计划和武装代理人的威慑力，而这些现在都已支离破碎，”华盛顿布鲁金斯学会客座研究员杰弗里·费尔特曼说，他曾在2012年担任联合国政治事务副秘书长，是少数见过最高领袖的美国人之一。

“Khamenei was obsessed with the mendacity and belligerence of the United States,” Mr. Feltman recalled. “His eyes were benevolent, but his words, expressed in a quiet, dull monotone, were anything but benevolent.”

“哈梅内伊痴迷于美国的虚伪和好战，”费尔特曼回忆说。“他的眼神是仁慈的，但他的话语，以一种安静、单调的语气表达，丝毫没有仁慈。”

Saberi’s hopes rose and fell during the recent fighting as she sat in her parents’ home in North Dakota. Against her better instincts, she found herself digging out her Iranian passport as the 12 days passed, and considering renewing it.

在最近的战斗中，萨贝里的希望时起时落，她坐在北达科他州父母的家中。违背自己的直觉，她发现自己在12天过去时翻出了自己的伊朗护照，并考虑续签。

She has not visited Iran in the 16 years since her release, knowing that return, as she put it, “would be a one-way ticket.” But the tug of her second home, Iran, where she lived for six years, endures.

自从获释后的16年里，她没有回过伊朗，她知道，正如她所说，回去“将是一张单程票”。但她生活了六年的第二个家——伊朗的吸引力依然存在。

“Iran’s in our heart, it’s in our blood, there is nowhere in the world like it, and I know so many Iranians in the diaspora who would go back and contribute if the regime falls,” she said. “My dad, in his 80s, spends his time translating Persian poetry.”

“伊朗在我们的心中，在我们的血液中，世界上没有哪个地方能与之相比，我知道许多海外伊朗人如果政权垮台会回去贡献力量，”她说。“我父亲，80多岁了，把时间花在翻译波斯诗歌上。”