Abstract

This chapter documents the processes by which the American intervention in Iraq transformed a plural nation into a bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all). In the civil strife of ancient Greek cities that was the model for Hobbes' state of nature, the intervention of the larger forces of Athens and Sparta, proclaiming unconditional causes to die for, transformed local social differences into lethal factional enmities. Death then raged from many quarters. The same effect of anarchic violence has followed from imperial conquer-and-divide policies in modern colonial and post-colonial societies. Historically, the state of nature appears as the effect of the subversion of the social contract rather than its precondition.

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