有官员称，自特朗普上台后，伊斯兰国已失去98%占领区域

The massive gains come after years of "onerous" rules, when critics say the Obama administration “micromanaged” the war and shunned a more intensive air strategy that could have ended the conflict much sooner.

如此巨大面积的领土占领取决于多年来“冗杂”的管理政策，批评人士称，奥巴马当政期间，对战争进行“微观管理”，并拒绝采用本可以很快结束战争的更高强度空军作战战略。

“The rules of engagement under the Obama administration were onerous. I mean what are we doing having individual target determination being conducted in the White House, which in some cases adds weeks and weeks,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the former head of U.S. Air Force intelligence. “The limitations that were put on actually resulted in greater civilian casualties.”

美国空军情报部门前负责人，退役空军中将大卫·德普图拉说：“奥巴马政府的干预政策是很复杂的。一个原本很简单的作战目标，在白宫实施起来可能需要增加好几个星期的时间。而且，我们增加在作战中的限制往往会导致更多的作战人员伤亡。”

But the senior director for counterterrorism in former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council pushed back on any criticism the former president didn’t do enough to defeat ISIS.

但是，美国前总统奥巴马国家安全委员会的反恐高级主管对前总统没有采取足够措施打击ISIS的任何批评予以回击。

“This was a top priority from the early days of ISIS gaining the type of territorial safe haven in particular, there was recognition that safe havens for terrorist groups can mean terrorist plots that extend — not just into the region — but to Europe and conceivably into the United States,” said Joshua Geltzer, author of “US Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signalling and the Terrorist World-View,” now a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School.

乔治敦大学法学院一名客座教授约书亚·盖特（Joshua Geltzer）表示，早期的时候，伊斯兰国的首要目标是占领一些避难所，占领难民区主要意味着恐怖组织阴谋不仅在本区域内，有可能会延伸到欧洲甚至是美国。他是《美国反恐战略与基地组织：信号传输与恐怖主义世界观》一书作者。

The latest American intelligence assessment says fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters now remain in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago. U.S. officials credit nearly 30,000 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and regional partners on the ground for killing more than 70,000 jihadists. Meanwhile, only a few thousand have returned home.

最新的美国情报评估显示，目前仍有不到1000名ISIS武装分子留在伊拉克和叙利亚，而两年前的峰值已接近4.5万。经估计，在美军组织的联合空袭和地面作战中有3万士兵杀害了7万多名恐怖组织圣战分子。与此同时，只有几千人返回家园。

The remaining ISIS strongholds are concentrated in a small area along the border of Syria and Iraq. ISIS, at one point, controlled an area the size of Ohio.

剩余的ISIS据点集中在叙利亚和伊拉克边境的一个小区域。ISIS一度控制着像俄亥俄州一样大面积的领土。

While ISIS has been largely defeated, it continues to call on followers around the world to conduct terror attacks during the holidays with a new message sprouting up on Tuesday, and a suicide attack in Kabul on Christmas with ISIS claiming responsibility. It’s part of the terror group’s effort to expand influence into Africa and Afghanistan. The U.S. envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition warned late last week not to expect a complete defeat anytime soon.

尽管ISIS在很大程度上被击败，但它仍继续呼吁世界各地的追随者在节日期间实施恐怖袭击，并在周二发布新的信息，在圣诞节期间，在喀布尔发生一起自杀式袭击，ISIS显然难脱干系。这是恐怖组织扩大对非洲和阿富汗影响力的努力的一部分。美国反ISIS联盟特使上周晚些时候警告说，不要指望能很快将其击败。

“ISIS became a brand, and a lot of pre-existing terrorist groups — you’ve seen this in the Sinai, for example — start to raise the flag of ISIS, mainly to recruit foreign fighters and other things,” said Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, in a press briefing Thursday with reporters at the State Department.

在周四的美国国务院新闻发布会上，美国国务院全球联合反ISIS办公室总统特使布雷特·麦格克对记者说：“ISIS现在俨然成了一个招牌，就像你们在西奈看到的那样，很多未成气候的恐怖组织团体如今也要举起ISIS的‘大旗’，主要用于雇佣国外杀手和购买其他需要的物品。”

Deptula thinks the ISIS fight would have ended much sooner if then-President Obama had given his military commander in the field more authority. He compared President Obama’s actions to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War.

德图拉认为，如果当时的奥巴马总统给他的军事指挥官更多的权力，ISIS的战斗将会结束得更快。他将奥巴马总统的行动与越战期间的林登约翰逊总统进行了比较。

“Obama micromanaged the war,” Deptula said. “We could have accomplished our objectives through the use of overwhelming air power in three months not in three years.”

德图拉表示，奥巴马对战争进行微观管理。我们本可以通过在3个月内使用势不可挡的空中力量来完成我们对ISIS的打击目标。

Deptula said ISIS-controlled oil supplies weren’t targeted for 15 months beginning in 2014, giving the terror group $800 million in much needed revenue to plot attacks and enslave millions of innocents.

德图拉说，ISIS控制的石油供应在2014年开始的15个月里，为恐怖组织提供了8亿美元的收入，以策划袭击和奴役数百万无辜的人。

In addition to ISIS, an old nemesis has taken root in Syria, and which might take on a bigger priority for the Trump administration next year, according to Geltzer.

盖特说，除了ISIS之外，一个老对手已经在叙利亚扎根，这可能会在明年的特朗普政府优先打击的对象。

“A lot of folks when they think about Al Qaeda probably still think of its center of gravity as being on that Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” he said. “But I would think of the center of gravity for Al Qaeda really having shifted to Syria at this point.”

他说，很多人在想到基地组织的时候，可能仍然会把它的重心放在阿富汗和巴基斯坦的边界上。但我认为基地组织的重心已经转移到了叙利亚。