Lawerence Of Arabia vs. Roosevelt

Stream-of-consciousness scenario time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence#Arab_revolt

During the war, Lawrence fought with Arab irregular troops under the command of Emir Faisal, a son of Sherif Hussein of Mecca, in extended guerrilla operations against the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt#1918:_Increased_Allied_assistance_and_the_end_of_fighting

The Hedjaz region of western Arabia became an independent state under Hussein's control, until 1925, when, abandoned and isolated by the British policy–which had shifted support to the al Saud family–it was conquered by Saudi Arabia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_conquest_of_Hejaz#Saudi_campaign

King Hussien o Hejaz fled to Cyprus, declaring his son Ali bin Hussien as the King of Hejaz, but effectively with the fall of the Kingdom the dynasty ended up in an exile. Hashemites however remained to rule the emirate of Transjordan and the Kingdom of Iraq.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/etc/cron.html

Although Saudi Arabia officially maintained neutrality through most of the war, the U.S. began to court the kingdom as it realized the strategic importance of Saudi oil reserves. In 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt made Saudi Arabia eligible for Lend-Lease assistance by declaring the defense of Saudi Arabia of vital interest to the U.S. In 1945, King Abdel Aziz and President Roosevelt cemented the tacit oil-for-security relationship when they met aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal.

What if T.E. Lawrence didn't die, continued to live in Arabia, went fully native, decided to back the Hashemites against the Saudis during the formation of Saudi Arabia, and ended up fighting Allied forces because of it.
 
It's basically the standard Dances with Wolves/ The Last Samurai/ Avatar scenario, which apparently did happen IRL a few times:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Augustus_Bowles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orélie-Antoine_de_Tounens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rajahs

The now-defunct AH Travel Guides site had this as a mini-idea:

The Definitive Guide to the Lawrencian Emirate

®1999 Thomas Keith

"Indeed, the two-hundred-foot-tall statue of Lawrence in Riyadh could be, and has been, called gauche and arrogant. Still, when one looks in the distance at the Great Derrick, the largest oil well in the Eastern Hemisphere, one understands that commissioning and erecting this statue was an expense this land could easily handle..."

"...and was indeed a cowardly act. Had the British Empire not signed a separate peace with Germany in 1917, the war might not have entered its bloody second phase, as the Kaiser faced the Franco-Japanese-American alliance for another six years, and the opportunity might not have arisen for T.E. Lawrence and his Arab allies to weaken the Ottomans and carve out a personal empire."

"...annexed the Transjordan in 1937. Problems continue today. Beware of bottles stuffed with burning rags, or "Suleiman's cocktails," as they're called, flying at Lawrencian barracks throughout the ravaged cities of Jerusalem, Damascus, and Beirut."

"Emir Thomas III has thus far failed in his attempts to win ITA membership. The second-class status of Turks and Jews in his country, and the hostility of the Japanese and American militarist governments to any force that might weaken their grip on the Pacific, makes this world a highly unstable prospect at best..."

My scenario is less elaborate than that, basically Lawrence simply goes full native and fights for the Hashemites against the U.S.-backed Saudis.
 
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