The US Can Put People on the Moon. Why Can’t It Get Iranians Online?
The US Can Put People on the Moon. Why Can’t It Get Iranians Online?
美国能把人送上月球，为什么却无法让伊朗人连上互联网？
It’s been three months since the United States and Israel attacked Iran, kicking off a seemingly open-ended war that’s been characterized by chaos, widespread confusion, and global economic damage that’s expected to persist for months—if not years. 自美国和以色列袭击伊朗以来已经过去了三个月，这场战争似乎遥遥无期，其特点是混乱、普遍的困惑，以及预计将持续数月甚至数年的全球经济损失。
Those suffering most from the war’s impact, the Iranian people, are arguably who we’ve heard from the least. A prolonged, nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Iranian regime is one key reason. So too is the absence of a flourishing and free Iranian press or a robust cohort of foreign correspondents operating within the country. Jason Rezaian would know: In 2014, when he was working as the Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post, Rezaian was imprisoned by the Iranian regime and convicted of espionage. He remained in Iranian prison for nearly two years before being released into US custody as part of a prisoner exchange. 受战争影响最深的人——伊朗人民——可以说是我们最少听到的声音。伊朗政权实施的长期全国性互联网封锁是一个关键原因。此外，伊朗缺乏繁荣自由的新闻媒体，也没有在境内工作的强大外国记者群体。杰森·雷扎伊安（Jason Rezaian）对此深有体会：2014年，当他担任《华盛顿邮报》德黑兰分社社长时，被伊朗政权监禁并以间谍罪定罪。他在伊朗监狱中被关押了近两年，直到作为囚犯交换的一部分被移交给美国。
I wanted to better understand where things stand between the US and Iran, and what a possible outcome to this war might look like. But I wanted to understand it from the point of view of someone who’s lived in the country and can speak firsthand to the brutal realities of the Iranian regime and the risks this war poses to Iran’s 93 million inhabitants. Rezaian, who is now the director of press freedom initiatives at The Washington Post, was generous enough to sit down and talk about all of it—from his personal experience navigating Iran’s oppressive government and state-sanctioned media to the distorting impacts of this conflict’s meme wars and internet blackouts. 我希望能更好地了解美伊关系的现状，以及这场战争可能的结局。但我希望从一个在伊朗生活过、能亲身讲述伊朗政权残酷现实以及这场战争对伊朗9300万居民所构成风险的人的角度来理解。雷扎伊安目前担任《华盛顿邮报》新闻自由倡议主任，他慷慨地坐下来与我讨论了这一切——从他应对伊朗压迫性政府和国家认可媒体的个人经历，到这场冲突中“迷因战争”（meme wars）和互联网封锁所带来的扭曲影响。
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. （本文采访内容经过删减和润色。）
KATIE DRUMMOND: Jason, thank you so much for being here and welcome to The Big Interview. 凯蒂·德拉蒙德（KATIE DRUMMOND）：杰森，非常感谢你能来，欢迎来到《大采访》（The Big Interview）。
JASON REZAIAN: Thanks for having me, Katie. I appreciate it. 杰森·雷扎伊安：谢谢你的邀请，凯蒂。我很感激。
Delighted that you’re here. Let’s start with the latest. We are talking on a Wednesday, about a week before this episode is going to come out. Right now, there is what I would describe as a fragile ceasefire in place. Questions remain over how long it will hold. The US has not ruled out additional strikes, and there are fears, especially with Iran’s latest statements, that the war could spread not only beyond its borders, but beyond the borders of the Middle East. What is your interpretation of the situation right now? 很高兴你能来。让我们从最新情况开始。我们是在周三进行对话，大约在本期节目播出前一周。目前，存在着我所说的“脆弱停火”。关于它能持续多久，仍存在疑问。美国并未排除进一步打击的可能性，而且人们担心，特别是考虑到伊朗最近的声明，战争不仅可能蔓延到其边境之外，还可能蔓延到中东地区之外。你对目前的局势有何解读？
I want to start by saying that we’ve been at some level of conflict with Iran since 1979. So we’ve never been at peace with the Islamic Republic. One of the first things they did was take American diplomats and held them hostage in our embassy in Tehran. So, this animosity is not new. I think where we are right now in this ceasefire, if I had to guess, I don’t think that the Trump administration, President Trump in particular, wants to attack Iran again. It seems pretty obvious to me from his statements. “I was gonna do it last night, but, you know, I got talked out of it.” 我想先说，自1979年以来，我们与伊朗一直处于某种程度的冲突中。所以我们从未与伊朗伊斯兰共和国实现和平。他们做的第一件事就是扣押美国外交官，并将他们作为人质关押在我们驻德黑兰的大使馆里。因此，这种敌意并非新鲜事。我认为，就目前的停火状态而言，如果让我猜测，我不认为特朗普政府，特别是特朗普总统本人，想要再次攻击伊朗。从他的声明来看，这对我来说显而易见。“我昨晚本来打算这么做，但你知道，我被劝住了。”
“Changed my mind.” “我改变主意了。”
Yeah. So, I think it’s pretty clear that the economic pain that we’re feeling at home has changed his attitude and desire for regime change—if that was his desire in the first place. I don’t think that if you asked him, he’d have a clear answer of why he got into this in the first place. 是的。所以，我认为很清楚的是，我们在国内感受到的经济痛苦已经改变了他的态度和对“政权更迭”的渴望——如果这最初是他的愿望的话。我不认为如果你问他，他能给出一个明确的答案，说明他当初为什么要卷入这场冲突。
That being said, Israel, in particular Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to keep going. I think he’s the wild card in this situation. The level of pain and suffering that the Iranian regime is ready to absorb and ready to force its public to absorb, I think is beyond what we imagined. 话虽如此，以色列，特别是总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡，想要继续下去。我认为他是这种情况下的“变数”。我认为，伊朗政权准备承受并强迫其公众承受的痛苦和苦难程度，超出了我们的想象。
I also don’t want to conflate the people of Iran with the regime. The regime is ready to keep taking hits, to keep fighting. They’ve been in a fighting posture with the United States, but also with other countries, for the entirety of their existence for the last 47 years. 我也不想把伊朗人民与该政权混为一谈。该政权准备好继续挨打，继续战斗。在过去47年的整个存在期间，他们一直处于与美国以及其他国家的战斗姿态中。
That’s not to say that they want to keep fighting. I don’t think it’s necessarily in their long-term interest to do so. So I think we will see skirmishes. Pretty incredible that Israel and the United States were able to take out so many top layers of the Iranian leadership, both last summer and then in the strikes that started earlier this year. 这并不是说他们想一直打下去。我不认为这样做一定符合他们的长期利益。所以我认为我们会看到小规模冲突。以色列和美国能够在去年夏天以及今年早些时候开始的打击中，消灭伊朗领导层的这么多高层，这相当令人难以置信。
Maybe even more incredible, though, is that the regime has continued to function. 不过，也许更令人难以置信的是，该政权竟然还能继续运作。
This is actually a question I have for you. I remember several months ago when these 2026 US-Israel attacks happened. They took out the supreme leader. They made a big show of it. I remember thinking, “But surely the Iranian regime has layers upon layers of succession planning,” and indeed they did. I mean, I’m a news junkie, but certainly by no means an expert in Iran, but it was very obvious to me that that was the case and would be the case. 这其实是我要问你的一个问题。我记得几个月前，当这些2026年的美以袭击发生时。他们除掉了最高领袖。他们大张旗鼓地宣传。我记得当时想：“但伊朗政权肯定有层层叠叠的继任计划，”事实也确实如此。我的意思是，我是一个新闻迷，但绝对不是伊朗问题专家，但对我来说，情况显然就是这样，而且必然会是这样。
Did the United States and Israel simply miss something there? 美国和以色列是不是漏掉了什么？
I think that our analysis of Iran in Washington leaves a lot to be desired. I think there were a lot of people in the foreign policy, the expert space who said, “The Supreme Leader is the totalitarian leader of an Islamic theocracy, and when he dies, it’ll all fall apart.” 我认为华盛顿对伊朗的分析还有很多不足之处。我认为在外交政策和专家领域有很多人说：“最高领袖是一个伊斯兰神权国家的极权领导人，当他去世时，一切都会分崩离析。”
Well, that was never going to happen. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t dissent. It doesn’t mean that people want to see this regime perpetuate. But there is a very big power structure that is built with Iranian ingenuity and creativity. 嗯，这种情况永远不会发生。这并不意味着没有异议。这并不意味着人们希望看到这个政权永久存在。但这里有一个非常庞大的权力结构，它是用伊朗人的智慧和创造力构建起来的。
Which means there’s horse trading, jockeying, lots of vying for influence and power within that system, and they have lots of guns, right? 这意味着在该系统内部存在着政治交易、勾心斗角以及对影响力和权力的激烈争夺，而且他们拥有大量的枪支，对吧？
Yeah. 是的。
So they’re able to maintain control for, I don’t want to say for the foreseeable future. I don’t want to put an expiration date on it, but they have control right now. I think what we missed was the idea that an aerial campaign that was frankly incredibly successful and took out lots and lots of leaders beyond the supreme leader—a lot of officials, speaker, former speaker of parliament who was a main negotiator in earlier nuclear negotiations, and many others—that that would lead to somehow an opening, for people to rise up. 所以他们能够维持控制，我不想说是在“可预见的未来”。我不想给它设定一个截止日期，但他们目前确实拥有控制权。我认为我们忽略的是这样一种想法：一场坦率地说非常成功、除掉了除最高领袖之外的许多领导人的空中战役——包括许多官员、议长、曾在早期核谈判中担任主要谈判代表的前议长，以及其他许多人——会以某种方式导致一个让人们起义的契机。
Well, how are people who are unarmed and unable to connect to the internet—and I… 那么，那些手无寸铁且无法连接互联网的人，他们该如何……