请帮忙翻译The Economist里的一句话

mitchelllcUID: 2793083

今天看了The Economist，感觉上面的文章文采真的很好，和其他新闻网站相比好了太多！
其中看到一篇文章是讲美国的伊拉克政策的，最后作者写到“But how tragic, and tantalising, to have come so close to establishing a moderately accountable form of government in Iraq, only to slip away before the job is done.”

我想了半天，也没想出来这句话该怎么翻译，请大家帮帮忙~

mitchelllcUID: 2793083

没人翻译吗？。。。

guo0693UID: 2540167

“But how tragic, and tantalising, to have come so close to establishing a moderately accountable form of government in Iraq, only to slip away before the job is done.”

没有上下文 所以我就根据表面文字来理解了，有错误还请见谅：
“这是多么的悲哀啊~在我们即将在伊拉克建立一个适度负责的政权体制之前，我们却不得不匆忙的离去，即使我们距离那个目标只有一步之遥。”

hyacinthUID: 2184492

3# guo0693


what about tantalising?

hyacinthUID: 2184492

btw, if you dont wanna be an interpreter, dont bother to translate it into chinese...

not worth it... that's not the right way to learn a language

mitchelllcUID: 2793083

3楼确实是没有翻译tantalising。。。
翻译这句话的目的是想知道最后的only to是什么意思，他的结构是什么。
期待高人解决

guo0693UID: 2540167

“But how tragic, and tantalising, to have come so close to establishing a moderately accountable form of government in Iraq, only to slip away before the job is done.”
我把tantalising放到修饰slip away那里了，只是中文意思上更通顺点，并没有完全按照句式结构来翻 4# hyacinth
这个句子改一下就更好理解了：We have come so close to complete the job that to establishing a moderately accountable form of government in Iraq. But how tragic and tantalising it is, we have to slip away before the job is done.