Very interesting BBC discussion on Sykes-Picot & how the British & French helped create the mess in the Middle East:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/...0701-2100a.mp3

I've always maintained that:

1. The major challenge of the 21st Century will be the unraveling of artificial states imposed in the post World War 1 settlement by the French and British Colonial Empires.

2. The US should not see its mission as blindly maintaining the order left behind by the French and British. It should either be imaginative or retreat into isolationism.

3. Just like the Middle East has Sykes-Picot (which created artificial borders and artificial states), Africa has the Berlin Conference - and I'm sure the Berlin Conference will unravel this century, just like the Middle East & Sykes-Picot are unraveling.

4. The challenge goes beyond Al Qaeda, access to oil or strategic rivalry with China. I think these are peripheral issues. States will fail irrespective of the presence of a bogeyman - and the British and French laid the foundation of many failed states.

5. So let's hold tight for a turbulent future, national unity is fraying in both Africa & the Middle East & the UK and France are definitely to weak to impose solutions - & possibly the US too.

So let's think ahead, let's think outside the box.