Iraq - A True Hobbesian State
Posted on October 23, 2006 in Musings | Comments (0)
On this blog I have mostly devoted myself to Thalasar web projects than I do talking about politics. However I was struck by a recent article in The Atlantic on withdrawl from Iraq.
Many commentators have started calling the situation in a civil war. In fact it's not nearly so good as that. A typical civil war has two sides and you can set people down around a negotiating and try to hammer something out. The secterian violence in Iraq while it can be drawn between two peoples (Sunni and the Shia) it has hundreds of groups involved in the violence. In other words there is no negotiating table big enough to seat everyone. This is a true Hobbesian state where small groups are the only protection available. This means of course barring some miracle the cycle of violence will be ongoing in Iraq.
