Thus Der Spiegel today. “Although there is always reason to celebrate the toppling of an autocrat, the outcome of the Iraq war and the rise of Islamic State have demonstrated in horrific terms that the alternative can be even worse,” elaborates the newspaper. A picture of Bashar al-Assad comes together with the article. Predictably, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are among its heroes. The core of the article is dedicated to Thomas Hobbes, though. He is hailed as the father of modern political science. As he argued, the state’s monopoly on violence is legitimate when used to protect the lives and possessions of its citizens. This is what the article is ultimately about. No matter how unappealing the argument, it is still right. And it does not apply to the Middle East and North Africa only. Dictators in Russia, China, and elsewhere in Asia are thus better than anarchy that would reign in their absence. And so on, and so forth. But this is where the article stops. It stops short of making the same claim for Europe and America. Sooner or later, it will perforce be extended to the two, no doubt. The argument is already lying in wait.