Letters: Where is Gertrude Bell when we need her?

I don’t believe that history repeats itself. I do believe, however, that the arrogance of ignorance leads to strikingly similar albeit preventable mistakes time after time. We could learn from Gertrude Bell.

She was a complicated, female British contemporary of T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, in the Middle East before, during and after WW1. She rode camels to visit desert tribes at her own expense. She learned native languages and respected local customs. She advised the British government on the establishment of post WW1 Iraq. 

Bell was critical of the arrogance of the western powers as they planned to divide the remnants of the Ottoman empire and draw lines in the desert sands post WW1 to create Middle Eastern countries that had not previously existed. She predicted that the 5,000-year-old desert tribal culture with which she was intimately familiar would not bend to outside intervention: