But, if Putin and the Islamic State have benefited from the West’s confusion, hesitation, and division in dealing with them, they are not paper tigers. If they were, the West would need only to wait for its adversaries to collapse under the weight of their own contradictions: Russia’s overestimation of its means, and, in the case of the Islamic State, the consequences of its appallingly cruel behavior.
但即便普京和“伊斯兰国”曾经从西方的困惑、犹豫和分裂中受益，他们也绝不是纸老虎。如果他们是纸老虎，西方只需等待对手在矛盾的重压下自行崩溃：于俄罗斯而言或许是高估自己的手段，而于“伊斯兰国”而言则是其残暴行为的可怕后果。