http://www.salon.com/2014/07/06/what_america_can_learn_from_lawrence_of_arabia_about_iraq_partner/
The hopeful Lawrence drew his own
“peace map” of
the region, one that paid closer heed to tribal allegiances and
rivalries. The map could have saved the world a lot of time, trouble and
treasure, one historian said, providing the region “with a far better
starting point than the crude imperial carve up.” Lawrence wrote to a
British major in Cairo: “I’m afraid you will be delayed a long time,
cleaning up all the messes and oddments we have left behind us.”
Since 2003, as the reckless invasion of Iraq unfolded, demand for
Lawrence’s book, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” increased eightfold. It was
taught at the Pentagon and Sandhurst — Britain’s West Point — for its
insights into fighting war in the Middle East. In 2010, Major Niel
Smith, who had served as operations officer for the US Army and Marine
Corps Counterinsurgency Center, told
The Christian Science Monitor, “T.E. Lawrence has in some ways become the patron saint of the US Army advisory effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Not for the last time in the Middle East would disaster come from the
blundering ignorance and blinding arrogance of foreign intruders
convinced by magical thinking of their own omnipotence and
righteousness. How soon we forget. How often we repeatfort in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
