Leviathan = Our S.O.B.

Andrew Sullivan, continuing his talent for singularly inapt references:

Hobbes and Iraq

Robert Kaplan sees the vital role of order in the establishment of freedom. Pity Rumsfeld didn't.


Hobbes (Chapter 17), on the deals people will make to preserve order:

This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the Commonwealth; which, to define it, is: one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence.

UPDATE 14 MARCH: Another Hobbes reference:

I wonder if Rumsfeld has ever read Hobbes.

Fair enough. Though if he had read Hobbes, he probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place.