Lawrence of Arabia

I've been plowing through a massive tome on T. E. Lawrence, aka "Lawrence of Arabia". It's an authorized biography, by Jeremy Wilson, and he has done tremendous research. It was published in 1989, so Wilson was able to get access to many previously classified documents, and he also had access to an incredible number of letters both from and to Lawrence. In those, you can really get a sense of context and background for the story unfolding politically in the Middle East during World War I. I must say that this is yet another area where I know next to nothing, and this book has been very enlightening. In a meeting at work, someone mentioned a rumor about Lawrence, so Bob came home and asked me to find a book on him at the library. The only one I could find was this one, which weighs in at almost 1200 pages, so reading it wwas not a remote priority on my list. But I started looking at the pictures, and they drew me in, so now I am all the way to page 437. It is so interesting to read about a Middle East with no Israel, no Saudi Arabia, in fact no Arabian countries at all save the Ottoman Empire, which was deeply hated by the Arabs. In a particularily prophetic passage on pg. 163, a General Cox, part of the Anglo-Indian leadership, said this about a military conquest of none other than Iraq: "We have nothing to fear from the populace of Baghdad and there is good reason to hope that once we are in control over Baghdad and the river and telegraph to Basrah, the tribes in the Euphrates valley . . . will accept our regime automatically."

An Arab nationalist named al Masri said at the time, however, " . . .that although Basra . . .had apparently accepted the invasion with calm and indeed satisfaction, yet it was not certain that the Arabs and especially the Arab officers further north would do the like. An invading army was sometimes an irritant however well it behaved and however great were the grievances of those whose country it invaded against their Government. Should some of the Arab officers in Baghdad take a mistaken view of the situation, they might stir up trouble . . . in consequence of their relationship with many of the tribal chiefs of Irak. Some of these chiefs . . .could put a considerable number of guerillas in the field." Interesting, and so very true still today.

One last quote, and a quiz--who does this remind you of? From pg. 229, "In political questions Sykes showed a taste for bold, all-embracing solutions and dealt in an impressive manner with grand schemes and vital issues; but he clearly lacked the ability or self-discipline to undertake any systematic examination of detail. As a result, much of what he wrote was little more than political rhetoric. Worse still, he was inconsistent: he would advocate contradictory policies on successive days with equal enthusiasm, apparently without realizing that such changes involved rethinking his entire position." Remember, this is 1915, not 2004!

As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history's mistakes are bound to repeat them.