The Middle East has come to look like—to borrow a phrase from the seventeenth century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes —a war of all against all. But the Middle East currently stands out, especially in ways relevant to U.S. policy. But cross-border violence in the Middle East today is not protecting human rights and, in many cases, constitutes an offense against human rights. In the contemporary Middle East, there is animosity between Shia and Sunni and, insofar as Israel is concerned, Jewish nationalism . It is true as well of some of the U.S. military interventions in the Middle East, including the current one.