Chess.

I absolutely love the game of chess.

I love the strategy behind each game played.

I love how it symbolizes battlefield tactics, at the same time conceptualizing today’s wartime reality.

Some of my favorite times have been behind a chessboard.

When I taught in San Marino, Calif., three years ago, another teacher and I made it a point to visit California Institute of Technology in neighboring Pasadena to watch “speed chess” tournaments.

I’ll never forget watching a Cal Tech student pick up a Rubik’s Cube and complete the puzzle in seconds. He carried a six-pack of Schlitz beer under his arm and wore a shirt that read “Speed Chess is Cool.”

“How did he do that?” I wondered. “And where did he get the Schlitz?”

I remember playing with an English lad in Prague’s Old Town Square, feet from a cafe where Franz Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, in the shadow of the city’s famous Astronomical Clock. How I wished to write as well.

These days, I occasionally play with Senior Copy Editor Christopher Fox Graham, between his cigarette and my coffee breaks.

Chess is timeless. And out of the undying game several mathematical and psychological theories have been derived.

But today, I think it’s time America, and the world, learn something new about the game. Something the world has yet to experience — peace.

So, I refer to Benjamin Franklin who once wrote of the game in an article called The Morals of Chess.

In the article, he writes about three lessons chess can teach people. Those lessons are foresight, circumspection and caution.

Chess teaches people to survey the “scene of action,” or big picture, and consider the consequences of their actions, he writes. He adds the game cautions people to move in haste.

Now, picture Iraq as a giant chess board.

Never mind who the players are, instead concentrate on the pieces. You are simply a spectator.

The objective is to put the opponent’s king in “checkmate,” all the while using the 15 extraneous pieces to evade or attack the opposing 15.

How valuable a piece is varies, but it can be assumed the king, then queen are most important, whereas the pawn is considered sacrificial.

Having this said, think of the soldiers abroad. Think of somebody you know, whether it’s family, friend or a friend of a friend.

What piece do you think they represent?

I’ll make the assumption there isn’t anyone who would consider these soldiers pawns.

One step at a time, forward moving, trudging along. If pawns aren’t sacrificed, they fall unwittingly into the hands of the enemy.

Collateral damage.

But, a king. A king moves in every direction, surpassed in mobility only by a faithful partner, the queen, dedicated to service to her lordship.

Less valuable pieces do anything and everything to protect their king, and the king relies on their commitment, selfless service and dedication.

At the same time, family and friends would do anything to protect their soldiers, unconditionally.

So what is the soldier, your soldier? A pawn or a king?

War isn’t a game, but if we looked at the situation in Iraq as a match of chess played by all countrymen where live soldiers were pieces, I can almost say for sure the conflict would end.

If everyone had say, as in a true democracy, I’m sure they’d agree all soldiers are kings to someone, therefore nobody can truly be a pawn.

In short, stalemates become the norm and the world can concentrate on larger issues, like Lindsay Lohan’s drug and alcohol addiction.

As Franklin wrote, “The game of chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it.”

How can you argue with someone who has their face on the $100 bill?

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