One of Dick Cheney's most preposterous comments amid a long political career of defying credibility and reality came before Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" attacks were unleashed and American forces occupied Iraq.

"Our troops will be greeted as liberators!" Cheney confidently proclaimed.

Anyone with a reasonable knowledge of Arab history knows that its people do not want to be occupied by outside forces.  

This was what confronted Turkey's Ottoman Empire when stern Arab resistance during World War One prompted one of history's leading figures in understanding the Arab mind, T.E. Lawrence, known as "the crown prince of Arabia" to achieve unity among warring tribes for the objective of freeing the Arabs from outside influence.