Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is not a masterpiece because of his strategy, however, but because of his writing. He is a master. His powers of description and the extended scene (the entire theory above is proposed as a fevered dream as he lies sick for a week in his tent) are almost unrivaled. He published his book as a novel, though it is, of course, a memoir -- and in tone and feel it precedes the ambiguities of truth and genre in the works of guys like Tim O'Brien and Frederick Exley.

It also preceded Hemingway's first war novel, "A Farewell to Arms," and Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front." Thus, Lawrence was a creator of both the individual soldier tormented about the aims of his war and his loyalties, but also, in his dual role of soldier and spy, the entire stock of Graham Greene and John le Carré characters. Lawrence could share with Chris Hedges a thing or two about how the corruscated beauty of war can burn out our souls, and when all the books are written on our latest Gulf War -- the one at hand and the decade-plus ellipsis that will ultimately join the adventures of 1990-91 and 2003 -- "Seven Pillars" will be remembered as the greatest Gulf War memoir.

Whether or not our occupation of Iraq -- and, possibly, Syria -- ends with a more democratic Middle East, or in a long, protracted people's war, is anybody's guess. So much depends upon the behavior of the 19-year-old lance corporals, and the ability of Bush and Blair to force a settlement on Israel and the Palestinians. Even Lawrence was aware that his guerrilla efforts required time:

"A province would be won when we had taught the civilians in it to die for our ideal of freedom. The presence of the enemy was secondary. Final victory seemed certain, if the war lasted long enough for us to work it out."

Of course, the long-held rhetoric of men such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz seems to promise just such a protracted situation, and not just in Arabia. With the notion that we are going to be the world's police force, and an active one at that -- taking the "war on terror" to the streets of Baghdad and where next? Damascus? Pyongyang? Manila? Tehran? We would do well to keep in mind that -- with the technologically and economically dispossessed, the militant religious sects, and the terrorists who act from the age-old truth that when there is no future, nothing is forbidden -- we are entering an age of global crisis and we should choose our weapons carefully. As Lawrence wryly remarks,

"War upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife."

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